001[Music] mic test one two mic test one two [Music] testing [Music] straight up six o'clock we're ready Christie good evening we have a very special person who is going to kick off our board meeting this evening I would like to invite Maggie Morris she is a fifth grade student from Indian Valley to the front and she is going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance so please stand everybody got a microphone for you you ready you lead us awesome I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you Maggie and thank you to your family as well I know you are here there we go you can snap some pictures too
002if You' like but we're going to make sure you get a picture this is for the Scrapbook tell us who who's here from your family um my mom my dad my sister and brother thank you all right thank you card behalf of myself and the Board of Education special gift for you there we appreciate it awesome great job that's a great way to start our board meeting thank [Applause] you all right we also um have um some special Awards tonight tonight we are proud to recognize several members of our human resources department for receiving multiple recognitions from the American Association of school Personnel administrators also known as um aaspa at this time I'd like to invite Olivia Schmidt Amy Dylan and Eric punswick to the front we are pleased to congratulate Olivia Smidt on receiving
003the human resource specialist support staff award she received this award because her contributions have had a significant impact on the efficiency of the human resources offices into the field of Human Resources she has distinguished herself through leadership Service as a collaborative contributing participant in person functions and programs Olivia we are so proud of you and blessed to have you on our team congratulations on this well-deserved honor all right congratulations also to Amy Dylan who is the director of human resources for certified staff on receiving the herb Salinger Personnel administrator of the Year award this award is given to an active member of aspa who has distinguished herself in Personnel Administration is involved in a contributing participant in Personnel functions and programs these contributions have had a significant impact on public education as a skilled manager
004of change and is creative in her approach to Personnel Administration congratulations Amy on this honorable recognition tonight we are also proud to recognize candy and this obviously is not candy here but candy could not be with us tonight so Eric punswick who was our chief communicate Chief commun that's my role Chief HR Director here in um Blue Valley Schools is going to accept on her behalf you know one of the reasons that she was recognized was that she goes above and beyond to make sure our health and wellness program is like no other and if you're an employee here there is so much she does around that to help us be um healthier um the programs she does are very Innovative very creative and that's what this award was all about it was tapping into
005the creativity to get your employees engaged in health and wellbeing and Candi certainly has deserved this award so please would you share that with candy um and let her know how much we appreciate her and the employees of Blue Valley appreciate her work so thank you we're going to take a picture all right congratulations okay next is our excellence and education award Jamie tarwater would you please come forward with your principal Lisa Thompson [Applause] we are excited to recognize Jamie tarwater a first grade teacher at Stillwell Elementary School with an excellence and education award this school year is Jaime's 28th year in the district So Lisa please tell us why she's such an outstanding employee thank you so much well I am honored to present to you Jamie tarwater she is um a rock star
006she's a rock star teacher and you said it 28 years and 28 years is where she has made still well her home away from home and I want to thank Jim and Cecilia and Isaiah if he's listening at Kate for thank you for giving your wife and your mom to all of the still well families um and the students because we are very happy that she has spent all that time with us if you ever need someone you ever need a listening ear you never need to brainstorm with someone Jamie tarwater is your person often times when I interview candidates I ask what are three words or phrases that your colleagues would use to describe you so here are a few words that Jam's colleagues have used to describe her fun funny laughter and smiling
007creative innov ative energetic and humble dedicated to doing whatever it takes she's Brave she's a friend and she's fabulous so thank you Jamie for 28 years and we're still counting so 28 years and many more to come thank you for all that you have done to make every day a BV best day for your students and for her colleagues and for all the families at still Elementary thank you so much you're very deserving congratulations so Jamie do you want to say something now thank so on behalf of the district I want to thank you for all that you do you know this has been a a year like no other for teachers and you are up here representing the great things that teachers do and and we're so appreciative of all that you do for
008your little kiddos and for all of us thank you congratulations we're going to get a quick [Applause] [Laughter] pick you can watch a playback all right to close out tonight we have a special special postumus recognition it was a little over a year ago we were set to recognize suana kiong a blue valley Northwest custodian with a distinguished service award he died unexpectedly before we were able to honor him Suk as his husky friends call him joined Blue Valley in 1995 as a custodian and served the blue valley Northwest Community from 1998 until his passing in September 2019 tonight we have a special video where we get to hear from those who knew him best take a [Music] look so he was a good friend uh very sincere but very jokeful the suit was a
009pretty outstanding person he worked here for a number of years he was here actually when I started here in 2013 I met uh Suk 2015 and he the first time he was smiling and he was really friendly he basically taught me everything and I used to ask him like why don't you become the lead of this building and he was like no I don't want to but he taught me everything I knew as far as the ins and outs of this building so when he left it was kind of hard he was a very good worker and a lot of people loved him that they uh tried several times to pull him out of his area but the uh teachers protested it was a rumor had he was going to be a sign into a
010different building so we were actually going to lose him completely and so we went complained immediately it's like no you cannot take him and and he's been here almost as long as we've been open I was one of the originals I'm one of the few teachers still here that started the building um so I've seen a lot of custodians and staff come through and um he's the best he'll never be replaced Su would come by at the end of the day that's when his day started and so it would be just after the students had left the classroom and I look forward to him dropping by almost every day um he would laugh about something even if he wasn't having a good day he seemed to have a sense of irony about it and appreciate
011the irony and something I always found that he um tried to find a way to see humor in things we used to make a lot of jokes together uh we had a couple of saying that I'm not going to say but we had a couple of saying that every day was kind of our pitch we just had a real good time he was a funny guy always making jokes a lot of fun to be around he used to turn the lights off on me in the bathroom when I was putle in the bathroom but other than that everything is just weird without him here he had various nick names for different people he used to tell me all the time he always used to give me a hard time he used to call me Dr
012Mike the way I wash my hands all the time real thoroughly for 30 seconds so I always used to get a big kick out of that he always called me crazy kid cuz I'm about 15 years younger than him uh I have a nickname I'm not going to give it to you sometimes he would call me daughter cuz he was like a a dad to me he seemed to be to me a very good father uh I think he had two daughters he would ask me about my family and he would also talk about his he loved his family and he just enjoyed life we always have big family gather and stuff in his house so um and every time I noticed some of the pictures at his funeral that almost every picture had a
013Northwest shirt on even when he was at home he was still one of our family and the one thing I will always remember he would always bring me Tai chulis from his garden I thought that was kind of sweet he bought he would always bring me vegetables he led the Red Hot Chili Peppers and I had my experience with that the first one he gave me literally set my ears on fire so it pretty funny he knows I have a cat and so he grew um catnip in his garden so he' always bring me catnip for my cat custodians don't get a lot of recognition you know but he he did his fair share of work he was very good he was good at his job I like Suk a lot he was one of
014my best friends around in this school we not having him here I I remind him with much love because was a nice man I miss him a great deal cuz I enjoyed his company his absence is truly missed here and um um we'll never be the same um you know with him gone and we definitely miss him here he was a member of our family and he's really missed [Music] at this time I would like to invite the family to please come forward you can all [Applause] come I want to also point out um that I know we have people here from Northwest who um couldn't be in the room so I want you guys to know um um that you have a group of people over here as well that I know are very
015um special and a lot of M see in this video so um we know that he was a a dear friend to you guys and and this is a great loss so tonight um we present to you um would like to present to you the distinguished service award um and also one of the things that um we mentioned was that he had been with us almost 25 years and just was um passed away just short of this 25th year but we want to honor that 25 years and so we are also presenting um the family with a 25e service award as well so he has meant so much to this um Community here in Blue Valley and I know he meant so much to the blue valley Northwest Community and to um your family and
016we are so sorry for your loss thank you so on behalf of Blue Valley Administration I also want to thank you you know I got to visit blue valley Northwest a lot and um I got to know Suk just a little bit because he was always had a smile on his face always was ready to help and um took great pride in what he did at Northwest and he he truly loved the huskys uh so we we are um so sorry for your loss and just know that he was an important part of our family too all right I think we'd like to um just get a picture of the family together if you wouldn't mind we're also providing you um with a um a copy of that video for you to share with other
017family members so um you will will be receiving that it's on a thumb drive and I it might be in my office so I might have to jump back and and grab it for you but we have that for you if you'd hold tight back there thank you and congrat congratulations on his [Applause] behalf thank you everybody wonderful Awards and recognition that recognition is for sure we're on to public comments read a quick statement I know folks have heard before um welcome to those who are intendance to address the board or listen during open Forum open Forum provides a time for individuals to address the board in an effort to ensure an orderly efficient and effective and dignified meeting open form will be provided for up to 60 minutes in an effort to give us
018as many individuals an opportunity to speak as possible during the 60 minutes open form the board will enforce a 3 minute time limit per speaker after 60 Minutes the board will close open form and will proceed with his agenda items for the evening whether you plan to speak or just listen we're glad you're here because we care about the opinions and concerns of our patrons if you did not have an opportunity to address the board during the meeting you may address the board by email communication a few other reminders that will help our speakers have a constructive and positive experience when discussing items with the board when making remarks please be civil and use respectful language if you're speaking in person please keep your face covering in place while you speak please limit the discussion
019to relevant business of the board tonight discussion of matters related to a specific student or employee is not allowed instead comment should be submitted writing to the superintendent please remember to limit your comments to 3 minutes and avoid repeating the concerns of a previous speaker if you have questions that require a response someone will follow up with you at a later time on behalf of the board I welcome you and appreciate your interest in Blue Valley as we strive to provide the very best education possible to our students when your name is called introduce yourself before beginning your remarks as a reminder 3 minutes on the time limits we will get started with Amy Thomas you're ready to go first weren't you Amy okay hi good evening Amy Thomas and I have a son two
020boys um at Aubrey Bend and Blue Valley Southwest so I'm going to talk a little bit about numbers first 241 it's the number of days since our children have been in school full-time nine is the number of days that my boys have been in school in the 241 days 85 represents 85% of parents who have selected full-time inperson learning 98 represents the 98% survival rate of covid 93% represents the percentage of the total deaths that have come from long-term care facilities meat packing plants and private businesses in the state of Kansas zero represents the number of deaths in children 0 to 17 in the state of Kansas five represents I'm going to pass that one um next I have some quotes from The Washington Post article recently came out today 35 of the 50 largest
021school districts open full-time and inperson learning regardless of community Co case spread why you might ask concerns about learning losses because remote learning was not working Educators fear and I quote we are going to dig our a hole so deep that it will take us years to get out of in the same article Brown University study dat they studied data through mid- October from more than 1,200 schools and found fewer than 1% of the students in staff had confirmed covid infections experts in this study say infection rates are lower than in the in the larger Community as a whole my personal experience with hybrid learning an example my son is taken chemistry he is learning nuclear equations from a video he has no opportunity to ask questions in his video a teacher cannot see his
022face look confused when he doesn't understand the material there's no I need to come in before school or can I stay after school for help we're not getting enough help from the teachers and they're doing all they can this is not their fault here's what I ask I ask that you remove the gating criteria immediately allow our children to go back to school full-time you've already met the needs of the high-risk students by offering a v virtual option please focus on providing education and allow the parents to make the decision of what's in the best interest of their children's health consider looking at this through a different lens is what I'll ask you today look at this differently consider that providing in-person full-time school would provide a more structured and controlled environment for these students
023with less covid exposure when they're in hybrid learning on the days they're not in school they have the ability to go into the community and potentially contract Co if you kept them in school full-time in person you would have a more controlled environment for these students and we know where they were at at any given time so I'm asking you today to open up our schools go to school full-time in person our children are suffering their scores are declining and we ask that you get rid of the gating criteria that's making it impossible to do so thank you thank you [Applause] Amy Harry reld thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is Carrie reld and I'm in the I'm the mother of three boys at lewood elementary I'm here first and foremost
024because I want to acknowledge how well the Administration staff and kids at our school have handled going back to school in person they've handled all of the new Co protocols like true Rock rock stars and have worked together to make it a safe and loving place for our kids to learn and continue to socialize and my family is forever grateful for the work they've done to help to keep my kids and other kids to help them succeed I'm also here because I've heard Rumblings that because cases in our area have started to rise a bit the opportunity for our kids to learn in person may go away and that would be a great disservice to both the students and teachers they have put so much work into making this making learning and uh inperson learning
025work a success this year if we were sent back to remote learning it would be a huge step backwards and we cannot afford that we are better than that in Blue Valley you must get creative to find ways to make inperson learning work because our community is counting on you of note I haven't heard many talk about the fact that although there are some kids who can make distance learning work there are many who cannot one board member mentioned in a previous meeting that it's not ideal for her fifth grade son but they're making it work and I'm so happy for them that it does because I wouldn't wish what my family has been through on anyone I'm here tonight to advocate for the kids who are not typical but still have the right to
026an education and that is accessible the kids who cannot learn by distance learning because of certain disabilities or even simply because it is an age inappropriate thing to expect them to sit still in front of an iPad all day and probably aren't able to read proficiently on their own yet there are a lot of families in Blue Valley who are unable to make at work even though they've tried so desperately too we're scared we're scared for our not typical kids on IEPs and 504 plans to be set backwards once again now that they've just now had the chance to try to get their footing again these kids never started on a Level Playing Field and we're already and we're already struggling to keep up with their peers these kids have fallen even further behind and
027further behind since spring we are scared because when we hear these Rumblings that we may go remote again we know what this means for our non-typical kids these kids don't have the luxury of being able to learn in a distance learning mode Blue Valley is not a school district that's just for typical kids at least that's not what I was led to believe when my husband and I moved here specifically for the Blue Valley education my husband and I have three children two of which are on IEPs and one child who is six years old during the Spring and during hybrid learning they became apathetic toward learning and schoolwork it was a day after day power of power struggles that ended with no learning and lots of tears and frustration my kids shut down and
028refused to participate after trying twice once in Spring and once in Fall to make it work and failing miserably we have learned that this is simply an impossible task for our family because of this if we are forced to do more distance learning my family will be forced to leave the school district since it's unable to provide for our learning needs as you talk about gaining criteria and make decisions for learning modes please remember that you are not here to make decisions just for the typical kids you're here to make decisions that work for all blue valley kids you're here to make sure that they have that they all have access to learning and an education thank you thank you [Applause] Carrie Julie Hamlin I'm Julie Hamlin bear with me I'm not a fan of
029public speaking but this is super important um to my family um I just want to start with some perspective that I'm an oncology nurse practitioner at KU Hospital I am well aware of the pandemic that numbers are going up um I've worked every day through the pandemic wearing a mask uh healthcare workers are as as essential as teachers and schools there is no substitute for in-person learning full-time I'm here tonight to urge that the gating criteria be if not changed completely gotten rid of since in the five weeks since middle school and high school have been in hybrid and Elementary School have been full-time the district has had 120 cases with 22,000 students 3,000 staff that is half of 1% of the total students and staff the gating criteria was established mid AUST with the
030best data available at that time there's three months of new data that's not included specific to our district and and student population number one obviously the dashboard that I just mentioned two map testing number three suicides number four the new survey that just went out I appreciate that the district is asking how your family is doing with learning structure academic growth social emotional well-being Behavior peer relations adult relations at school managing daily schedule and I urge you to use the information obtained from this survey with making new decisions because I guarantee you my family is not the only one struggling with all of these things in this survey Maya Angelou said you do the best you can until you know better when you know better you need to do better we want our students to
031learn to evaluate data and apply critical thinking the district and the board need to lead by example with half of 1% of the total student in staff schools are not a place of spread and infection mitigation strategies that the schools are using are working the mission statement of the district is unprecedented academic Su success and unparalleled personal growth for every student this is not being accomplished and as it seems with the current gating criteria it will never be accomplished for middle and high school students because the district will never be in green these students are at a vulnerable age they need to be with their peers and teachers isolation and increased time on technology most likely is causing more damage than the potential for contract ing contacting Co thank [Applause] you thank you Julie Maryanne
032is it War am my close awesome hello my name is Maryann warhe and I have a sixth grader and an eighth GR in the district the facts and data that I'll present to you this evening have been emailed to you with full citations as I stand before you today my kids have attended School in person for a total of 10 days this Academic Year they have struggled to do things this year that came very easily to them in years past my kids know a thing or two about resilience they moved four times in eight years early on they made new friends and discovered new ways to learn material they know hard work one kid manages a lawnmowing business and builds 10 to 15 clients every week they know about perseverance and grit they were rewarded
033with a first place finish at the greater Kansas City Science and Engineering fair I tell you this so that you understand that bright kids are struggling well adjusted kids are struggling kids who pivot easily are struggling they're struggling to submit assignments online online they're struggling to get counted as present online and they're not able to self- Advocate online so I'm here today to advocate for them early on many of the decisions we made were because we just didn't know about covid-19 and how it would be transmitted in the school environment but as our understanding of the virus evolves so must our approach to school so here are the things that we know today we know that Co isn't being transmitted at school we know from multiple peer-reviewed studies that opening K12 schools doesn't increase the
034risk of transmission and we know from our own Blue Valley covid-19 dashboard that individual cases don't give rise to outbreaks week over week mitigating strategies like mass handwashing and contact tracing are enabling schools to reopen successfully we know that buildings can accommodate the full volume of of students On Any Given school day elementaries are already open at full capacity yet they have half the square footage per inrolled student as a typical middle school or high school we know that under the current model student achievement is suffering District maap averages fell in Fall 2020 as compared to 2019 these problems won't remedy themselves when teachers are torn between two sets of Learners in hybrid mode finally we know that there are inherent problems s with the gating criteria the decisions are only as good as the
035data that are used to make them for example school adism isn't measuring kids that are sick at home with covid-19 symptoms but rather kids like mine who are being counted absent even though they were impr present for the entire Zoom session it isn't right and it isn't fair to hold them hostage to criteria that are accurately measuring risk at school we want to return to full-time in-person learning and believe that we have every mechanism in place to do so the current model isn't sustainable for teachers and students twice the work half the learning and all the frustration thank you for your time please Let Us return to full-time in-person learning for all grade levels thank [Applause] you thank you Maryann uh Linda mlio my name is Linda milatoo I have two children a seventh grader
036and a freshman in Blue Valley previously I spoke to the board about the mental health consequences of our current learning modes since I last spoke we have lost yet another one of our suu students to Suicide for months schools have been forced to weigh the risk of children and staff catching Co 19 at school against the risk of children suffering the detriment of Home isolation it's clear to many which risk is becoming more dire for our children our teachers and administrators approximately 75% or more of families have chosen in-person learning it is essential that we figure out what we can do and how we can do it even if it's not perfect what can we do to maximize the possibility of students resuming in-person school full time our students and teachers are struggling and are
037under a great deal of pressure hybrid is not working for many of them but going back to all virtual is not an option and we cannot afford to continue in a hybrid virtual situation for months or years keeping the current measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage for some and even if we get a vaccine Co is still going to be be a part continue to be a part of our Lives we need teachers to feel safe and to have technology to support a virtual and full-time in-person learning environment we what support what support do teachers and staff need to maintain their emotional well-being and feel safe with full-time in-person learning trust transparency and consistent messages are important for families and teachers to start to feel safe with going back
038to school to improve this please update the co dashboard in order to provide data for Co St statistics from s data from surveys learning mode elections mental health statistics and educational statistics within the district the current gating criteria primarily cons considers the number of infections in the community without regard to the severity of symptoms or deaths especially as it relates to the student and teacher population it creates barriers to go back to going back to school full-time rather than helping us identify ways to figure out how to safely get back to school full-time it does not consider the educational emotional social behavioral and other safety needs of the students and fails to recognize how well the district schools and the schools have been able to Implement mitigation measures and precautions which have proven successful in
039preventing transmission within the schools we need to consider eliminating the G gating criteria and providing two learning modes to families virtual and full-time inperson many schools in our community are doing this successfully I'd like to request that an in-person in-person parent advocate be allowed to participate in any focused disc discussions surrounding the gating criteria moving forward thank you to the board for your recent efforts to gather data from students parents and teachers I look forward to seeing the data and to see how it informs your decisions thank you for thank you Linda Nikki Nikki canazaro good evening my name is Nikki canazaro I've got three kids in the uh School District all attending prair Star Elementary School I'm here to talk to you um and ask you to reconsider the use of the gating criteria
040um the gating criteria set forth by the Kansas Department of Education I know there are different opinions about this issue in terms of politics always getting brought into play but let's put all that aside and talk about some things that we can agree on I think we can all agree that education is essential aside from some Medical Services there is no service more essential than educating our children in fact we can see it throughout the world countries Across the Nation or across the world are allow are locking down their borders or locking down their their citizens but yet doing everything they can to keep schools open that tells us how essential educating our children is and how important it is to do that in an in-person setting the Blue Valley School District's mission is unprecedented
041academic Su success and unparalleled personal growth for every student the mission of this board is to provide leadership vision and support to the Blue Valley schools that ensures an equitable worldclass education and creates lifelong learning how are we stacking up to the world if we're not allowing our children to be educated in person this board is committed to assuring the academic Excellence with a focus on student learning we all know Student Learning Happens best in the classroom your duties as a board member must be guided by the goal of enhancing student achievement we need to prioritize our in-person learning according to all experts CDC American Academy of Pediatrics National Academy of Sciences everyone agrees in-person learning is the best route the Board needs to make a decision on the education of our children by returning
042them to inperson learning the only way to do that is going to be to get rid of the gating criteria having sat through several of these meetings I've heard arguments that the Board needs to keep schools closed tighten up the gating criteria eliminate extracurricular activities and sports to protect the community with all due respect to those arguments I've read the policies I've read the board manual your job is not to protect the community your job is to protect our children and to ensure they're getting an education and they need to do that in the classroom after learning on uh Saturday morning that the gating criteria was not a specific criteria on the board's agenda we put together a petition and within less than 48 hours we've had over 950 signatures on a petition asking that
043this board reconsider the use of the gating criteria it's arbitrary it doesn't work I don't need to recount what everybody's already saying and will say but it's clear I'm going to just shut that off it's clear that it's not working and that what are what we've proven is that the district has done a good job of protecting the children with the safety protocols that they've put in place masking all of that and the children are being able to be educated in person without transmitting the virus we need to allow that to continue to happen but most importantly we need to allow that to happen to the uh middle school and high school students who are suffer suffering greatly we've already lost four children in the district to Suicide but there's hundreds more that are suffering
044and many that are being hospitalized we haven't lost anybody to covid we're doing all this to protect against covid but we're forgetting about what the most important thing is is protecting our children protecting our children's mental health educational health emotional health and the only way to do that is to put these kid children back into the courtroom can we do 30 more seconds Nikki okay got it back into the classroom they probably should stay out of the courtroom that is noted though yeah we cannot wait any longer losing a week a month a quarter a semester any more on the our children's education has devastating consequences life or death type consequences this is a very important decision I would urge you to consider getting rid of the gating criteria I have the petition that I
045can deliver to you in hard copy here along with the 947 signatures as of about 10 minutes ago I probably as I speak there's more because they're coming in hundreds uh by the hour but that's what the majority wants we would urge you that you get rid of the gating criteria and give the the students and parents an opportunity to choose their mode of Education I think the timing of your decision is very important because we've put a timeline in place with the survey that's gone out that requires parents to elect inperson or virtual education the parents need to know what they're signing up for by inperson and it's real simple there should be an inperson learning which puts our children back in the classroom and for those that don't feel safe they can select
046the virtual option communicate that to the parents and I think that it meets everybody's needs thank you thank you Nikki Jill Jill aaran all you signed up this time I got you Jill acran mom of four Blue Valley students and a family physician I trained at Mayo Clinic practice medicine in Kansas City for 12 years for the CDC covid-19 survival rates 99.997% for those age 0 to 18 and for the American Academy of Pediatrics severe illness due to covid-19 is rare among children survival right is 99.5% % and higher for patients up to age 70 private and public schools across the country and abroad have opened successfully with mitigation measures we now have data that suggests that schools are not the Super spreaders that we feared the Brown University review of 227,000 students from 47
047States yielded a low infection rate of 0.13% among students 0.24% among staff similar information is available from Australia Italy and countries in Europe where large outbreaks linked to school reopening were rare multiple States including Texas New Mexico have shown up to 40 to 70% of students in Virtual learning environments have had at least one failing grade and that there is great concern about the inadequacy of academic achievement in Virtual learning environments over 43,000 medical and public health scientists and Physicians have voice their concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing covid-19 policies School SCH lockdowns have negatively impacted diet sleep physical activity and obesity rates among children there's been a shocking increase in the number of deaths of Despair and young people when compared to last year increased rates of suicidal
048ideation depression anxiety and substance abuse has been well documented on October 30th Dr Anthony fouchy said reopening schools should be the default position Dr Scott gotle said that reopening schools for in-person learning should be the number one Focus for communities mortality rates of our hospitalized patients have dropped dramatically yesterday fiser announced a vaccine that is hoped to be 90% effective in providing immunity in closing our cases our hospitalizations are increasing in our community we anticipated this now more than ever it is vital that our community maintain aggressive mitigation strategies to protect the vulnerable especially our aging population and those with underlying health conditions wear a mask stay home when ill follow isolation and quarantine protocols and choose virtual learning for your family if that is your need and I will continue to advocate for you
049to have that option other countries are seeing similar spikes yet they have prioritized in-person learning as essential and they are keeping their schools open I've applied as a substitute teachers my fees are paid I've been fingerprinted I'm just waiting on the government to do a background check I'm trying to do my part so I can support our community and especially our amazing Educators that can't handle this hybrid per your board of education website I will re revisit your mission statement which is to ensure an equitable worldclass education and to hold yourselves accountable to the patrons of the district members of the board superintendent merrian the majority of your patrons have spoken please live up to your mission statement thank you for your time thank you Jill uh Christine White hi my name is Christine White
050I have two kids in the blue valley Northwest District at Blue Valley North well they're at blue valley Northwest and um I wanted to talk about two things tonight the first is what a bunch of people have already covered which is that the safest place for kids really is to be in school 5 days a week uh full-time not in hybrid going to Starbucks with their friends getting their nails done hanging out in kids' basements with no masks getting covid spreading it around the rest of the world they need to be in school so I didn't read my whole fancy typed out stuff that's just the summary of that part I'll skip the ne skip to the next one my second issue is I want to address the fact that Blue Valley schools are not
051meeting the Kansas statute 72- 1111 which states every child must receive 1,116 hours of academic instruction per year normally this involves six hours of instruction per day for 186 school days currently the kids in hybrid which is the majority of our kids in hybrid learning have three days a week with their teachers in person and two days a week where they log in for attendance log off and then teach themselves chemistry physics algebra geometry history and English our kids are only getting three fifths of the instruction they are by law supposed to be receiving how is this even legal the bigger question though is what is this doing to our kids academically even before Co hit kids in Blue Valley were struggling with reading proficiency on the 2019 State assessment results only 45% of sophomores
052were reading at a level consistent with success uccess in college or career so if before covid 55% of our kids weren't reading at a level compatible with with success after graduation how bad is it going to be after nearly an entire year of subpar instruction if you can't read at a 10th grade level you can't get or keep many manufacturing or trade jobs if you can't read at a 10th grade level you can't make it through college the job of schools is to educate our children children should not be expected to educate themselves it's time for Blue Valley to do its job thank you thank you Dr White Jim McMullen okay thank you hi there my name is Jim McMullen I've got a I've got three former Blue Valley students are all graduated and off
053to college I've got one Junior at Blue Valley West and I've got a third grader he's in a private school thankfully um the uh everybody the 10 people or so that have already spoken spoke eloquently about the gating criteria so um what I'm going to tell you is the gting a criteria is being misused by you it should inform your thinking it shouldn't uh be the crutch that you guys have established to not make a decision publicly so perhaps I've missed it but I don't have I couldn't find anything today where where any of the seven board members made a public statement about whether we should be online hybrid or in person I don't I haven't seen anything where any of the seven of you have made a statement about whether it should be put
054up as a whether you should collectively as a body make a statement what happened was at the August meeting you created a committee you shi it from a Johnson County to a Kansas gating criteria all which are focused on physical health don't don't take into consideration mental health educational achievement Financial well-being uh you know Community cohesiveness none of that those things should be things that you sit as a board and look at and say we're in the yellow here we're in Orange here we're green here and what are we going to do it it's really unfortunate that on Tuesday of this week that all seven of you weren't up for reelection because if had you been up for reelection all seven of you would have been removed and we would have new members of the
055board so it's at least incumbent upon you to at at this meeting at a special meeting to publicly State what your position is as to our children for the families that have elected to go in person what's your position I I don't know what the position of any of the seven of you is you're elected officials the elected officials take information from Health officials psychologists psychiatrists educational data gatherers political scientist whatever and they synthesize that and then they make a decision and they're held accountable by the voters I hope that you you'll all take that into consideration and publicly come out with what you what you have to say thank you thank you Andrew War hi my name is Andrew warhe and I'm an eighth grader at auy Ben Middle School first I'd like to
056say thank you for holding this meeting and giving us the giving us the opportunity to speak I am favor I am in favor of full full time inperson school and here are the reasons why first when we're inperson school we get face-to-face interaction with our teachers and our questions can be answered directly we also are learning or doing work for the whole class period compared to an online class which last 5 to 10 minutes secondly I feel when we are online we get little to know learning instruction over Zoom is not as thorough as it would be in an in-person class a problem with hybrid learning is the teacher's main focus is the kids in the classroom that's how it should be however it leaves the kids online to be almost completely self-guided as an
057eighth grader the amount of learning that I'm actually getting worries me because I do not feel like I'm getting the amount of learning I'll need to prepare me for high school I also feel that during online learning kids don't build the key skills that you form in Middle School to prepare you for high school if we stay in hybrid or remote learning it will have a detrimental effect on how kids learn in the future of our academic success thank you for listening to my views and I hope you take them into [Applause] consideration thank you Andrew great job Jody Havens hi my name is Jody Havens and I have three children in the Blue Valley District I have two in high school and one in Middle School my concern lies in the mental well-being of
058both our staff and our students there are schools Nationwide who have been learning in person and have done well what is our end goal yes we want to keep people healthy but is the virtual and hybrid modes of learning really keeping our kids healthy are they mentally well how about the number of kids whose weight has increased due to inactivity is hour after hour of screen time without real face-to-face interactions more important to their health than being with their peers and teachers in the schools where kids can get help ask questions and interact with others we need to weigh the benefits of keeping kids out of school with the risks to their overal overall health and mental state keeping our kids in isolation is doing far more harm than good something needs to change I
059have taught for 10 years my sister teaches in Upstate New York and two of my sister-in-laws teach in Illinois they are all teaching 100% in person they tell me that that is their preference to be teaching in person the and that the virtual and hybrid modes are too difficult and that students are not thriving in remote I know firsthand how challenging the teaching role is the virtual and hybrid modes have taken a lot of time away from instruction even though we've made progress our students are still not experiencing School the way they should we've watched our senior take on a very negative attitude these past few months after being denied a spot in the Caps program and not being allowed to be in person this straight A student has switched her Focus from school into
060working three different jobs while we fear her Contracting the virus at one of these work places we recognize her need to be with people I think we can all agree that most of the students getting covid are not getting it at school and that the rise in cases among young people would probably be lower if they were in school in a controlled environment wearing masks my freshman however is my biggest concern she is extremely introverted and was diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression in third grade she has come a long way but this isolation that she has been forced into has taken us many many steps back for the first time in six years she asked her psychiatrist to increase her anti-depressant all summer long she talked about having no friends she had hoped to
061have a fresh start in high school to find her people starting out virtually was a huge disappointment to her and navigating canvas on her own from home was rough she has always been an AB student but was failing four classes through much of September and October it is so hard it is so hard to get extra help from teachers in this hybrid mode and her confidence is plummeting with the way this year is going our fears for her mental health are very real this isn't just about my child either so many kids are doing very poorly this school this in school this year academically and mentally my ask is as an administrator and board that you weigh the risks of what it is you're trying to protect against the mental and educational challenges that the
062virtual and hybrid modes of Education are presenting thank you very much thank you Jody Elizabeth Quint hi my name is Elizabeth Quint and I have two children at oakill elementary school and the learning mode for December I know the learning mode uh decision for December is next week and I'm pleased asking you to strongly consider keeping elementary students in person full-time elementary students get a level of soci socialization at school that is essential to their development they also require close supervision an assistant that makes the hybrid and remote schedule a burden for many Elementary parents last week when Johnson County went into the Red Zone Johnson County Health officer Dr Joseph Lee master said that schools are doing a great job protecting staff and students and Blue Valley is doing an excellent job the Blue
063Valley elementary schools are doing a great job so far 85% of the Blue Valley School District Schools elementary schools have had fewer than five covid cases this year it's exceptional you're doing an excellent job with Elementary with it full-time so please consider letting the elementary students that signed up for inperson school continue to go five days a week thank you thank you thank you Elizabeth Caroline Elder danda my name is Dr Caroline danda I'm a licensed child psychologist I'm trained in the scientist practitioner model I am also the mother of three children in Blue Valley School District I have an eighth grader a sophomore and a senior the weight of the social and emotional Fallout due to isolation disconnection disconnection and academic challenges uh uh associated with the hybrid and distance learn learning is absolutely
064enormous I see it in my own house I have two children essentially failing all of their classes despite our best efforts and the teachers best efforts I hire the same stories among my friends and in my clinical practice every single day and every single day I get more calls from parents who are distressed about the mental and emotional health of their children associated with distance learning the youth lack motivation they worry about their apathy and they find it difficult to connect with teachers and peers the children are not all right the families are not all right this is not merely my opinion these are the facts a report from the CDC shows rates of anxiety and depression among adolescents has tripled since the pandemic began a national 4 Council survey found that more than seven
065and 10 teenagers are struggling with mental health a Gallop poll onethird of parents reported their children as already experiencing harm to their mental and emotional health due to the current distance learning practices and social isolation local statistics are not likely to differ we not only have a covid-19 pandemic we now have a mental health pandemic on our hands the effect can be far reaching a systematic review of studies found social social isolation and and loneliness increased the risk of depression for up to 9 years later students are increasingly isolated depressed anxious at times and honestly many have learned not to care about school they are dis they are disengaged and they are failing kids need structure they need purpose they need to go to their jobs every day in person anecdotal and research reports show
066schools can Su can success sucessfully meet in person fulltime and are not super spreaders the elementary schools have been safely open and the middle and high schools should be able to open as well Co St covid-19 statistics cannot be the only so determinant of gating criteria we need statistics specific to our district to include the impact of covid on Health social emotional and academic functioning we need to look at the levels of stress anxiety and depression among students and staff we need to look at the number of failing classes the number of missed zooms the number of missing assignments the changes in map scores we need to ask different questions not when but how how can we how can we open the schools how well can the district Implement measures to mitigate risks we know
067that masks distancing and ventilation are keys and we know that it is working lastly our teachers are essential period they are the heroes that are trying to make a working tirelessly every day trying to make a very impossible situation work what can we do to make sure they feel safe and supported outside of distance learning we need to prepare for a world in which covid is not going away however the current distance and hybrid learning approach is not sustainable for our children or our teachers they suffering let's work together to find solutions to move forward and get our students back in school full-time thank you thank you Caroline uh Kennedy Campbell hi I'm Kennedy Campbell I'm in a junior at Blue Valley Southwest High School uh I would first like to start with establishing my
068credibility freshman year I finished with a GPA of 41429 and sophomore year I finished with a GPA of 4.07 62 I've never had a difficulty with motivation in school and I've always been very involved and been very willing to take Advanced and honors classes but with less in-person instruction I found that I have a difficulty with communication with my teachers and a lack of connectedness with my class and other students which has led to a lack of motivation and accountability hybrid is confusing and inconsistent and very difficult for students I'd like you guys to look up covid and teens just like that on Google and you'll find more articles on the consequences of Co affecting mental health at my school I've seen all students and teachers with a mask regardless of their opinions on them
069currently we are not socially distant but we haven't had many cases in our school and and this is why I think that we should go back to full-time in-person learning there's an online option available for students who choose that and I think that they should be fully supported but I also think that us students who need to go back in person should also be fully in uh fully supported in our choice to do so suicide plagues our district all of us have lost someone to it and now there's more of a lack of Hope than ever how long will we wait before we acknowledge how much us students are struggling and how much we're losing from a lack of in-person instruction I would like to call for a full-time in-person schooling and the abolishment of
070grading criteria thank you for hearing me tonight thank you Kennedy great job we'll compl complete open form tonight with remarks from our patrons who submitted comments in writing first off while I don't have first up it's Bob Stewart you have a voice over how are we doing when we started school at the beginning of this year you laid out guidelines to follow while many of us believe them to be too loose we understood the pressure you were under to come up with a plan at the time the jcdhe used the same guidelines as the CDC but the KSD used different calculations that made positivity rates almost half of the widely used calculations sadly the jcdhe changed their guidelines a while back to match the ksde we blew past 15% on the old scale already 22.3%
0714 days ago and we are approaching 15% positivity with the reduced calculation Community transmission red is 250 it is now double that at over 500 we are approaching the time when those criteria will kick in and schools will need to adjust cases are rising at record rates hospitals are filling up a friend of mine had a loved one who required hospitalization but there were no beds available they had to wait for one to open to get the care they needed rural areas are seeing spikes along with Urban and Suburban areas these aren't isolated to certain geographical locations but spread throughout the country throughout our state and throughout our metro area this pandemic is real just look around the globe for proof look at the last 5 days of well over 100,000 cases A Day in
072the US and the record breaking 132,000 plus cases in a single day look at the rising hospitalization and death rates in the US it's not going away we recently hit 10 million cases we will add another million in the next s days or so setting yet another sad record you are charged not only with keeping our children safe but keeping our community safe every child who contracts the virus will spread it to their family and their family will spread it to others in the community other schools parents grandparents aunts uncles and more the vast majority of parents support keeping the criteria and following what you promis to do we aren't there in person because we believe this pandemic is real and feel the risk High to be mixing with those who don't and understand that
073those who downplayed this aren't taking it seriously but we the majority are behind keeping the criteria as it is we believed you in September we support you now keep our children and our community safe keep doing the right thing for our children and our community thank you Bob Jason Anderson as the parent of a student currently enrolled in Virtual Ed I have followed very closely the evolution of the district's covid response and the reactions of other stakeholders throughout the community in the weeks leading up to the beginning of the school year there remained much uncertainty about how covid would behave on campus facilities and how effective the district's mitigation plans would be we are now facing the same decision on whether or not to enroll in person for second semester but with Much Greater Community
074spread our infection rates are at their Peak and still climbing if you were to have applied the current gating criteria any day during the past two weeks we would be in orange instead of yellow and return to remote only learning in the upper schools Trends are still worsening on current timelines families must choose between virtual and inperson before the district has determined its learning plan for December we need and deserve an indication on whether you will honor the commitments reflected in the gating criteria and we need that guidance before we can make informed choices about next semester covid spread is a community issue and no action taken here will solve a pandemic but schools are an important component and these decisions signal to our children and neighbors whether or not we are willing to do
075our part I implore the board to resist any efforts to change the rules at this critical moment to respect current guidance from the county health department to follow the data and to honor your commitment I additionally ask for either an extension of time for second semester selections to allow those choices to be made after these gating criteria assessments are complete or that you expedite the gating criteria review so that this information is available for families thank you Jason Sally gck I strongly urge you to listen to doctors and scientists and keep the gating criteria do not fold to the parents and unqualified doctors leading the petition who pressure you to only look at one part of the picture the students yes stud students mental health is important but mental health experts agree that children are
076resilient and this has not and will not impact suicide rates or students long-term mental health our District staff and imuno compromised students and Community all want a return to normaly but in a pandemic that is not possible we need to teach our students that being part of a community means protecting them and making sacrifices while our student numbers for covid may not be scary now as they increase they pose a greater risk to our staff and Community current hospitals are reaching capacity 250 nurses are quarantined from kued and beds are becoming scarce the answer to slow the community spread is to follow the gating criteria adopted previously our teachers and students are not merely liquor store clerks and patrons as one parent said months ago they are in school for 7 hours a day in
077close proximity to one another and even in masks this poses a risk please do not cave to the pressure of parents wanting a return to normaly we all want that but we also need to admit that full-time school during a pandemic with Rising cases is not the answer thank you Sally Karen bachan I am writing to urge you to follow the Khe gating criteria you adopted back in August I suspect you are hearing from a lot of people who want full-time school no matter the spread in the community so I wanted to make sure you heard the flip side as well as I'm writing to you I'm listening to the ventilator that helps my 11-year-old son breathe when he is asleep he has a tracheostomy breathing tube and cerebral PSY and seizures among other diagnoses
078he is extremely vulnerable to co he is a virtual ed student at otms at the same time I have an 18-year-old daughter who is a senior at Blue Valley North currently in hybrid mode I also have a 12-year-old daughter who is a seventh grader at otms she has an IEP that calls for her to attend school full-time regardless of the mode the school is officially in as covid spread in our community increases the risk of attending in person increases too we have gating criteria that is supposed to guide the school district as to when it is safe to meet in person we made our decision to send our daughter in person at BB in based on those criteria but we've seen them bent and stretched over and over please hold firm to the kdhe criteria
079please follow the gating criteria you accepted please follow jcdhe guidelines to cancel Indoor Sports if not using masking and other mitigation practices the decisions you make affect the kids in school they also affect the teachers and School staff many of whom are vulnerable they also affect the community at large and they affect families like mine thank you Karen next up David Edwards while I don't have the opportunity to attend this meeting in person tonight I hope everyone will still take my message to Heart nearly a month ago I attended a school board meeting concerning the removal of tequilla Mockingbird of M and Men The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn despite my best efforts for many months I have been ignored this school district has recently made as they call it
080a commitment to diversity equity and inclusion I have no problem with that but when you start Banning books that's when I have a problem I use the word ban even though the district has been dodging this term as by the definition of a baned book a removal from the curricul um counts as a ban you're trying to stop students from exposure to the Past from exposure to ideas that makes them uncomfortable I understand that characters in these books use problematic language but rather than use past bigotry to fuel a discussion of progress and acceptance you cast out these novels as if they don't exist you say the books aren't banned because students can still read them but can they you removed these books in the middle of of a global pandemic when many students have
081elected to participate in a virtual education some of the best books I've ever read have come from books assigned in English class Banning good books like to Kill a Mockingbird isn't helping people I've Le left this comment and I appeared at the last meeting because I as a student at the Blue Valley High School care about my education I only ask that you host a meeting so that you can hear from the people who care about about these books not just the listening tours you held in the summer together complaints but a two-sided discussion about these books from which you can re-evaluate the decision then I want you the board to hold a public vote so that you not employed administrators but you the elected officials can be held accountable for a decision that voters
082care about I believe this is a bad decision and there are many that agree with me and I'd like a chance to share our opin iions those that wanted the books gone got that why can't we thank you thank you David uh last up Ann Hooper today Monday is another at home learning day for my high school son another frustrating day for me as a parent to watch him sit alone in our office staring at his computer screen bored frustrated wishing this school day was over sadly Tuesday and Wednesday will be the same and not until Thursday does he get to return to school which is 100% more engaging and allows him to interact with those few friends whose last name are in the same half of the alphabet I was hopeful that by November
083school students would get to return full-time to classroom but my son just came out of his cave and informed me that rumors are going around that school will soon be back to all virtual again and yet today's Kansas City Star article suggested that Johnson County Schools will begin high-risk winter sports this month how can we be okay with high-risk Sports where social distancing can't happen and not be okay with in-person school where both social distancing and masks are required where is the logic here how can we be okay with one but not the other I've heard that special mitigation strategies were used in the all sports why can't we devote the same energy to figure out special mitigation strategies for in-person learning too if there is such a concern please know I think sports are
084great my point is that if is if it's safe for high-risk Sports it should be safe enough for in-person learning where social distancing and masks are used to allow one without the other sends the wrong message as to what is a priority for our district I sure hope the rumors I'm hearing are wrong and Blue Valley is smart enough to figure out how to allow both in-person Learning and Sports to happen in the months ahead students need both please provide them with both thank you an that wraps up our open forum for tonight on behalf of the board of vacation thank you for to our participants we appreciate that each of you took time and spoke um have read every single one of your emails have met personally with several folks uh in the community
085so we do appreciate um you coming in tonight and in the past weeks as well next up we will call tonight's meeting to order receive reports from board advisory committees Dr Miran so tonight we have several board advisory committees I think first up finance and operations um with Mr Kyle Hayden the finance and operations board advisory committee met on November 5th at 7:30 a.m. via Zoom conference call 17 of the 19 members were present along with two guests the meeting started with a General District update from myself and the Board of Education rep serving on the committee Jenny Daniel Director of Finance presented the funding and expenses related to covid-19 pandemic to date Jason Gillum Director of Business operations and Jake slobotnik director of facilities and operations presented an updated on the plan District's Logistics
086Center project I'll be sharing more information in a report later this evening Director of Business operations Jason Gillan presented 17 bids and contracts and Jake spotnik presented seven design and construction contracts the next finance and operations advisory committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday December 10th at 7:30 a.m. thank you Kyle uh curriculum and instruction uh Dr Katie Coler the curriculum and instruction board advisory committee met via zoom on Wednesday October 13th Katie Bona director of career ready programs led a discussion on proposed changes to High School courses course revisions will be presented to the Board of Education this evening for review and potential approval prior to the close of first semester there were limited questions and no concerns with the proposed with the proposed revisions as presented Jennifer lazinski director of curriculum instruction conducted a
087presentation helping curriculum and instru helping helping excuse me curriculum and instruction board advisory members understand the role data plays in literacy instruction with a particular emphasis on the elementary Learner in this presentation she discussed the importance of building a strong Foundation of reading development in the early years specifically she addressed the use of a universal screener or assessment across all K5 Elementary grades which puts the district ahead of State expectations in this area this year we plan to expand this assessment to sixth through 12th graders next year who have not yet met identified standards for comprehension to ensure ongoing analysis and targeted support for their needs as more mature readers Mrs lazinski went on to explain the importance of progress monitoring and goal development once diagnostic assessments are administered in order to proper properly ensure
088skill development occurs for all readers at all levels additionally resource adoptions intended to build phonics and pheic awareness were explained along with the components of the district's Ela curriculum designed to support the progression of reading development as children progress from grade to grade the curriculum and instruction board advisory committee will meet again via zoom on November 11th thank you Katie uh Student Activities uh David Stubblefield good evening thank you yes I see your new Air Jordans these these are new as well can't read up close anymore I can't see so on third on Thursday October 22nd the Student Activities Committee met via Zoom the primary purpose for the October Student Activities Committee meeting was to discuss our Focus for the 2021 school year as this was the the first SAC meeting of the 2021 Academic
089Year the Board of Education representatives to the committee shared the history of the sa and past initiatives that have come out of the committee that directly benefit students throughout the district next was a review of the Kansas State High School Activities Association it was acknowledged that there is a difference between education-based athletic Athletics and activities and a club-based athletic and activities approach members shared information about cas and that ultimately Casa's role is to support member schools by providing opportunities for kids throughout the state to compete in a safe environment small groups then brainstorm topics for the committee's consideration for the 2021 school year each group Shar the results of their small group discussion finally administrators provided athletic and activity updates for the high schools and middle schools followed by an update from the Blue Valley
090Recreation the next meeting will take place November 19th thank you David health and well-being uh with Dr Mark schit good evening good evening the health and well-being board advisory committee met via zoom on November 4th 2020 starting at 4M the committee was joined uh on this evening by Tara Asher the director of nurse uh the district nurse coordinator and Elizabeth uh hsha director of em epidemiology for the Johnson County Health Department our Focus for the meeting was the Blue Valley covid-19 protocols in collaboration with Johnson County Health Department ter uh Tara Asher began the evening by detailing the response protocols and how we go about doing contact tracing within all of our schools uh this was also an opportunity to point out the incredible amount of work that our nurses have done uh in order
091to conduct over well over a thousand different cases where they had to do some contact tracing or gather information for the health department following that Elizabeth Hol Shaw discussed how the health department uses this information in order to make decisions and make and and let us know which students or staff members need to be quarantined at that time next we discussed a lot of the mitigation efforts that are going on within our school dist District uh these include quarantining of close contacts creating classroom space temperature checks of students and staff cohorts sanitation procedures increasing building ventilation and face mask we also had a discussion about the DAT uh data on the district website that points out the number of positive cases uh here within our district our next meeting is Wednesday January 27th at 4M
092again via Zoom thank you Mark that concludes our board advisory committee reports all right next up receive reports from board members and the superintendent on items not included on the agenda Michelle Benjamin anything Yes actually uh I on Saturday I attended the uh Kansas Association of school boards um legislative committee meeting and uh they presented to us the federal uh platform and the state one as well um and um I was pleased to see that they talked about um the special education funding being a top priority issue both at state and federal which I know is something big for us so um and um well that that was the most important thing but we have one more meeting before um it is approved by the uh delegate assembly in January so thank you Michelle Patrick
093Hurley Madam vice president nothing JY Deets Stacy okay got it uh yeah I have an update um we did have another qua meeting this was one of the six uh Regional working sessions that we have it is not a voting meeting no decisions were made uh we simply divide up in six different regions around the state um as board of directors and then uh representatives from the schools to discuss um um topics and again these were just conversations that were had nothing um has been decided I don't even know that any of these are necessarily going to go to the executive board for approval but here were some of the things that we spent time discussing uh Unified sports bowling adding this as an opportunity um at the high school level and modeling possibly the
094program after Nebraska they have had unified uh bowling uh for quite a while and um we're looking at adding that in the offerings in the next year also considered some sportsmanship initiatives um it is having a drastic impact on officiating and officials and availability to get those folks to work our games and it was mentioned that um this fall they noticed a little bit of a difference um with the smaller reduced crowds in in some of the um some of the things that were yelled or said uh by parents and looking at maybe some opportunities to provide some more um initiatives to guarantee sportsmanship um across the state it is definitely a Statewide issue not specific to any particular area the conversation is continuing about the public versus Private School uh qualifier if if there
095needs to be something put in place for those schools that operate the private schools that operate that allow open enrollment and control kids and recruit kids and should they be competing in the same um state championships as other groups should it be by class as it currently is based upon the number of kids enrolled in your school or should there be something put in place to equalize those fields a lot of conversation about uh coaching education courses and and and what's relevant and valid and helpful for coaches these days we don't want them doing things that uh don't really provide any new information um that they need we're trying to be sensitive to their time uh mental health Focus for activity uh participants and um figuring out a way for coaches and sponsors to appreciate
096and understand the competing priorities that kids have these days and that you know you may want your kid to play a sport or do an activity and you may have them in theory for three months a year but then you also have requirements for them the other nine months of the year but they may be doing other sports or activities during that same time and it it it can be challenging and difficult for a lot of the kids to um participate in multiple events when or activities when that happens happens there was also a a lot of conversation about winter sports and how uh how to handle that I will say they do try to keep it very Broad and at at the state level and they really rely on the schools to follow the
097local County guidelines and so knowing that um covid is different throughout the state and really look to maybe some more localized guidelines on how winter sports uh would happen they also broached um a couple of ideas about when to have practices when to have games that sort of thing just trying to make it as safe as possible for the majority of the schools and I think that was the gist of the meeting and um I'm not sure what will come of it of any of those things um conversations continue our next uh board of directors meeting isn't scheduled until next spring so um I'm not sure the board of directors level that anything will happen um but I just wanted to give you an update on that I will say it is nice to have
098our meetings again Student Activities health and wellbeing it is a pleasure to sit in on those and I really appreciate you all have made it work with zoom um it's difficult it's challenging but I think that we have figured out a way to do it that everyone has a way to participate and um whether type in in the question or you know waiting their turn to speak so it is it is nice to be hearing from patrons and uh their input again so I do appreciate your efforts with that and that's all I have thank you Stacy Mike sides two very quick it items um the first is I also attended the uh virtual Kansas Association of school boards um board of directors meeting on Saturday the only thing for us to understand um other
099than the normal business that occurred is that this year's convention will be um all virtual and um much easier to attend um everything will be recorded uh and when I say attend uh at our Leisure we can um attend some of the um seminars that they put on and what have you please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or um need to get signed up um we have obviously a blanket um provision for all of us to be uh in attendance but uh let me know if you have questions the second is um I don't ordinarily do this but I want to recognize Dr Mark Schmidt for a moment I have never been on the health and well-being committee before this year and we've had two meetings um exceeding well done
100with great speakers with great input from the public um the first was um Tim deis who's the uh director of johon County Mental Health and the second one was Elizabeth whose last name I cannot pronounce from uh uh Johnson County Department of Health and U environment um and while I didn't get all the answers that I had hoped for uh or all the answers that I wanted uh Mark I want to commend you for putting a group together and and leading us down a path that helps not only um all the kids in the Blue Valley School District but really the community as a whole so my hats off to you I appreciate it and uh job well done thank you Mike uh we did receive a great email today from our school psychologist it
101is National psychology week so during our interesting times that was especially warranted the notes so we appreciate all they do for the district so I want to make sure I acknowledge that um Dr Morgan I do have a couple things the first one is it is uh school psychologist awareness week and Blue Valley is very lucky to have school psychologists uh available in every single one of our buildings and I've had the privilege over my uh 20 plus years in the district to work with amazing professionals and so thank you to our school psychologists for all that they do uh to support the mental health uh of our students in all of our buildings the other thing I want to make sure that we note is November 16th through the 20th is American Education week
102which is week but uh I thought it was important that I mentioned that um you know I want to this has been a hard year for everybody involved but I want to give a huge shout out to our staff in our buildings um who you know we might disagree on things uh but I don't think anybody disagrees how hard our teachers and our principals and our par professionals and every single person who works in our in our buildings is working so um thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you do uh I know that this has been a challenging year and I wholeheartedly support you and I thank you for caring for our students and for doing what what you think is best for them and then I'd be remiss if
103I didn't thank our community um our Blue Valley families have wrapped around our teachers and other staff members in our buildings and I want to thank you for that all of the ptas PTO as well as just parents in general who have done that um it's it's education is important uh to our community and and I applaud our community for that so on behalf of our Administration you know I just want to make sure we acknowled that American Education week is next week that's it national principles month last month last all right okay nothing else uh approve the agenda for the November 9th 2020 regular Board of Education meeting as published looking for a motion I move that the Board of Education approve the agenda for the November 9th regular Board of Education meeting as
104published motion by Stacy o bringer baral second by Michelle Benjamin all those in favor please raise your right hand that motion passes 70 consent agenda looking for a motion for approval I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda for the November 9th regular Board of Education meeting as published motion by Stacy o bringer bar Hall second by Amy tling any further discussion or any items we want remove or moved to New business seeing none all those in favor please raise your right hand motion passes 70 on to new business learning update so Dr CER is gonna push the slides ahead for me here for the first few I'm going to do those and then she's going to take over um so to start with I'm going to take you back to our
105Co dashboard um this is on our district website and these are the number of new cases um by schools it's updated on Fridays it's the dates are Wednesday to Wednesday um the data reflects confirmed covid-19 positive cases not you know we suspect somebody has it they're presumed positive I don't know the other terminology we use but these we have a test that says yes they are positive and so as you can see we have had a a a spike um you know I think the last time we were in a board meeting it might have been the five that we were looking at and uh it has spiked up to last week was 53 so we've been busy the other thing that we've had a request for um over the last couple of weeks is
106to know how many uh students and staff are quarantined so if you go ahead one um you'll we added this just this this past week uh again this is updated on Fridays uh this reflects the reported numbers of student and staff uh that have been directed by the Johnson County Department of Health and environment to quarantine so as a reminder we don't issue the quarantines uh we simply communicate those uh sometimes these have not had anything to do with our buildings they've happened in the community and that they've had to quarantine or that they have a positive case and they just communicate that to us quarantines are typically 14 days uh from the date of last exposure to a presumed positive or A positive covid-19 um case so that again that is a new um
107thing that we have added to the dashboard at the request of a couple of different patrons um these are these numbers reflect students and staff combined so um the next slide these are just some updates since our last meeting and I I thought it was important that uh we talk about these just at least briefly and give the board a chance to to ask questions the Johnson County Department of Health and environment I think it was last Tuesday uh came out with recommendations and they and as everybody's talked about the numbers in Johnson County are spiking and according to their gating criteria um we are now in what they consider the Red Zone and under the red zone for their criteria uh schools would be remote U but they came out both Dr lamaster and
108Dr arola and in public interviews and actually they told us that too in a meeting they had with Johnson County Superintendent that they were not not at this time recommending any changes to the learning mode that schools were employing uh for two reasons one is that they applauded the schools on the mitigating efforts that they were using and the second one was they said at this time they're not seeing spread within the school so for those two reasons um they did not recommend even though we were in red at this time that we would would change that um as a reminder we are not using the Johnson County Department of Health and environments uh gating CR criteria um we're using the the uh Kansas Department of education's navigating change gating criteria but it does contain
109some of the same um numbers in there so that that came out um another thing that came out from the Johnson County Department of Health and environment is winter sports um and activities which are set to begin next week um they did come out with a recommendation to all schools not just Public Schools but to all schools uh to really look at those indoor high-risk activities of basketball and wrestling they talked about specifically and if you were first of all they recommended you not do them but if you were going to do them to really look at some severe mitigating uh factors including um the number of Spectators you had um those those types of of things um again our criteria is under the Kansas Department of Education criteria but that is something that was
110public um as somebody referenced earlier we do have a survey that we have put out to our community um that closes tomorrow so anybody who's listening who hasn't done that yet um please make sure you do that by uh end of the day tomorrow and then we will have um some results to share after that and then um finally then I certainly want to open it up to questions from the board um we have uh communicated our last communication was that we would stay in our current learning mode um through uh upsale Thanksgiving break and that the next one would would uh be announced on the 16th uh to begin on the 30th of November uh we did that to try and give some consistency to our teachers and um that that's where we're at
111uh we still again as I've said a couple of times at this point are using the Kansas Department of Education uh navigating change criteria so uh that's what we'll be using so with that I'm going to open up to questions from the board before we talk about the learning mode decision for second semester that Dr CER is going to go through questions from the board comments Amy Tyson yeah could you just talk about the cases we've seen I know you've talked in the past about a struggle to find Subs this year could just um how many Subs are we having to get is it an abnormal number and are we successful in finding Subs so that's a that's a $22,000 question so I might have Eric help me out here but to so I'll give
112you example today because I happen to walk into um it's Olivia who we honored earlier is our um Subs specialist is that her title uh so she comes in at crocod daon I don't know 6 5:30 something like that and and works on the subs and so I saw her this morning and first thing and we only had high schools in session today remember our elementary and middle had a professional learning day and we had 77 sub requests for our high schools and we had 12 that were not filled so out of 77 we were were able to fill 65 is um so that that's kind of percentage wise I think we we we've tried to do some different things you know I applaud the uh person who told me that they had signed up
113to be a sub we've had some additional people sign up to be Subs our district office staff um has gone out and done some subbing uh anybody who's licensed uh as like for example I'm signed up Friday to go sub so we're we're doing what we can to mitigate that um but it we are getting at a critical stage Eric I'm looking at you like I know she's really worried about this week yeah come on up yeah I think there'll probably be some followup questions Dr puns did you say you were seven Friday well I'm on the list uh we are seeing a um uptick in the the number of quarantine as you see on the and also in the number of cases so that with regular sick believe that we have we're seeing that
114increase so right now we know that we have vacancies tomorrow we know we have vacancies on Wednesday and we're seeing a need for over a 100 Subs in our buildings on a daily basis that's not necessarily an abnormal number it's just that we don't have as many individuals saying yes when we call them to come sub we've had Subs that have had to pull out because they themselves were either in quarantine or became positive for covid as well yeah Mike sides I know that you talked to your peers throughout Johnson County is that a trend that um sh M and OA Spring Hill the other Johnson County and surrounding areas are feeling yes so if you look at our whole pool um we have Subs that sub in other districts as well we share the
115same labor pools about a third of our subs are on other sub lists and so OA and shauny Mission are having the same issues on a daily basis of filling at about a 75 to a 85% and we're used to being over 95% on our fill rates help me understand we do if if we have a class that doesn't have a Ser great question so we have some internal um pieces that are in place uh we do some collapsing over our classes we also have teachers who their supervision at the secondary level is to cover a class um we using anybody and everybody at this point we've used the term all hands on deck during this time because in terms of the the this time of year we don't see this type of um unfilled
116positions we tend to see this in the spring as the weather gets nicer we'll be able to have 275 people absent last spring and be able to cover it but given the pandemic and the labor pool um we're using people early now do you see any do you see any reason this is this going to get better I I would like to say that it would get better but if I'm looking at the charts from the last two weeks it the uptick is is steep right now and so uh last board meeting I was telling you that we were getting more subs in that we were covering um 100 100 people and we were getting within two to three every day that we were feeling good about it um last weekend uh the number of
117uh students and staff that were being um identified for quarantine and for positivity was steeper than it's been in the past 30 days so as of today the numbers don't look great so the other thing I was going to say is the strategies that we used to employ go against our mitigating factors so at an elementary if you if you had a second grade teacher who you couldn't get a sub for you'd you'd Farm out you know you U6 go with this class today you6 go with this class well you don't want to do that now because we we've tried to you know keep kids down as much as as we can and so as Eric said it's all hands on deck sometimes it's the counselor sometimes it's the librarian sometimes it's again somebody from
118district office um it's all hands on deck because we we're it's a priority for us um and so we are trying to utilize every single person that we can it is easier at the high school it's not easy but it's easier because of Just The Way their schedules are in place Patrick thank you uh Tom I got a the next question is so so where where's our capacity where does at what point in the in the process can we not fill uh classrooms with teachers and what happens when we reach that point yeah uh very good question Patrick we discussed this earlier today and to put a to put a number number on it really has to be at the individual building level we can't say as a district because we may have one building
119that hasn't needed a sub for 30 days and we have another building that we may find ourselves needing you know 20% of the staff members that need a sub on that day so it's really case-by casee basis and looking at the schedule but we look at it we know that if we have a situation in which there's quite a few staff members that are out for quarantine as well as positivity that we need to look at that and say is this a type of building that we need to um either put all our resources towards or uh we've seen examples uh here locally in which they shut the building down for a week or two weeks to let that quarantine pass so so as a follow followup do we have the ability or the capacity
120to move teachers around to meet that demand and and have we ever had a pro situation to date that we haven't been able to hold a class no we've been able to cover it so far I'd have to say that we're really getting close to that point where we're not going to be able to do it internally and we'd have to start looking at those examples that are out there of around either closing sections closing grade levels or looking at what do we do with the building on a day like that the other thing I would say is that it's not just teachers um it's par professionals um it's administrators um you know we've had more food service principal Food Service custodians it's it's a across the board and many of those people you don't
121typically get a sub for but if you know you can't have an elementary Building without a principal for two weeks um that you know for one day you could maybe piece through it but you can't do it for two weeks so um some of those were were we're so far Eric and his team have done a fabulous job of of finding people to cover and and to be in there um but those are all different areas well as a followup um so how close are we to where we're at the point where we won't be able to do something I mean where's our staff or our administrator line so to speak where something then can't happen I mean are we getting close to that Breaking Point yeah we're we are we're approaching and I would
122have to say none of us have actually been in a situation like this before to actually say Okay past history show us that this would happen but if you just play the numbers game if you look at that graph if we went back to that graph and looked at it if we see uh triple the amounts of quarantine you're starting to look at a point where you don't have enough people to be able to handle and so that's a balance between how many how many staff are out how many students are out during that time and that just breaks it down by both students and staff so when you're looking at it in terms of we know that we have a pool of around 300 Subs but on any giving day only a third of
123them are working if we start getting the need to have 300 substitutes within the district and like one building has at least 40% of their staff out you're in a position that you really can't hold school thank you thank you Dr are yeah any questions for more for Dr punswick it's a related question not necessarily for Dr punswick but the this graph and the one prior concerning um because the trajectory and the slope of both of those trend lines seem to be following the as the Johnson County trend line for the same and maybe not quarantine but certainly cases cases is there any reason to believe that that those numbers are not necessarily um connected no we uh we actually had a a meeting about this this afternoon if you did this and you were
124to do an overlay of community transmission what we're seeing within Johnson County they're mirroring one another and so uh these numbers represent as we've talked about before um we're not seeing in school spread we're seeing spread within the community and then we are then reporting it as a quarantine because they're not in our building a student in that but they're they they are almost almost identical in terms of their Trend and I can tell you that what we're seeing since Wednesday of last week that if I was to put money on it both those num numbers are going to be higher when we do a measurement at the end of Wednesday thank you I think follow up yeah I have a different question but not necessarily for Dr punck okay please um so probably Dr
125meran so just from a learning mode perspective in particular that's what my question is about um we've talked about the how we use the the state of Kansas criteria um um I'm curious um just in conversations you've had with the county you know if they say certain things we don't necessarily have to follow them because we follow the a different criteria but if the county was to look at the numbers to what Mike said just in terms of the charts and how they look and say guys we got to send everybody home I mean we fall into that category then right we can't necessarily avoid that well I think they would make a recommendation at this point um I I don't believe that they're prepared at this point to so far things have been recommendation
126right okay so not a mandate necessary it would be it would be a recommendation okay just to kind of piggy back on that so you're you're in these discussions with the Johnson County Department of Health and environment the superintendents are on there you have the health folks you know Mike alluded to this at our last board meeting you know a lot of stuff has shifted down to the these school boards and our school districts to really mitigate what's going on in our County for some reason are we given any indication that the county is willing to do anything on their end except for send us letters and emails and notes that are just suggestions do you ever hear anything and I'm guess I'm I could ask any board member about them doing some stuff in
127our community you know I love to go to restaurants and movies and be out and about and coach on weekends as much as anybody but I'm probably okay for a while if we can get our kids back in school right and I I know all my board members feel the same and I know we have all different thoughts on how we should do this and maybe mine are a little stronger on the kids back in school and that's that's good but it I just I guess I'm looking for some help here and I'm just wondering and and I know Mike you're in the loop on stuff and and other people talk to folks I just wonder are there be getting any indication that maybe the county can step up a little bit here so not
128I have not heard that I will say that uh we have reiterated that over and over is that schools should be essential I heard that from one of our speakers and uh you know I have a friend who teaches in Italy and she is essential she's an English teacher a high school English teacher and she goes every single day to school but you know what's not open is what you just talked about all the different all the other things because school is deemed essential so uh at this point I have not heard that but that is a something that we have asked is like we want our schools to be open we need our schools to be open but we're going to need some help yeah I'm just wonder if there's a candidate conversation soon
129like this week with yourself and other superintendent and some decision makers at the county that we need I mean this is this is getting crucial here crucial here as people have alluded to on emails and tonight and and all different angles here but it's getting crucial and just for the overall health and wellness of our kids so I'll take other comments on that but it's just my commentary on things that we could be doing no I hold on real we typically don't but hold on no anybody else um Elizabeth yes her uh the epidemiologist from uh uh Johns County Department of Health and environment was in Mark's meeting um last week yeah last week and I asked her that very question my question was a little bit more direct and the question was um while
130you make recommendations one way or another um and my question was about sports you make a recommendation about sports and yet to your point you can go anywhere and play basketball except the the schools that you're recommending close how do you justify that and and I don't want to throw Elizabeth bu she's a she's a epidemiologist she's not a um policy maker and but frankly she had a hard time understanding answering the question not because she didn't feel strongly but because there is some conflict and and there isn't consistency of decision making I've had conversations with at least three um of our County Commissioners and and voice that same concern I've had the the conversation with one twice or three times the other two um at least once I've had the same conversation at our
131KB board meeting and everybody in the state is having the same issue and that is the uh the the the folks at the bottom of the hill are catching everything that's rolling down on us um with no with no ability and no certainly no medical budget knowledge kind of folks um to make that decision so Tom I I just want to let you know I share your your your um frustration I think um and you know Dr Morgan and I have talked and you and I have talked I think I think we just need to keep pushing and pushing and pushing for at least a little bit of help in getting our community to understand that those numbers we're not playing anymore and those numbers are going to stop us from playing and the gating
132criteria that we adopted looks at those numbers and we can't we can't we can't not look at the community as a whole so I urge both of you as the board president and as the superintendent um uh to to keep pushing our County leaders our state leaders to the extent that we can to help us in getting things under control so we can bring our kids back to school that's the end of my talked to County leadership as well but I didn't mean to no I and I know Dr am is working on that meeting about you know now is the time or several months ago any other thoughts yes Patrick I want to back up a second here let's let's go back to our school psychologists I mean we've got a a lot of
133challenges going on and for for the the school Psy just group I I think they do a lot of heavy lifting but let's go back to either some of the kids that are in a hybrid or in Virtual what kind of capacity or recommendations would we have for um the average parent that may say you know GE my my child may be doing okay in in either setting but just isn't quite right what kind of capacity or or signs that that a parent might see that would suggest um hey maybe we need to give him a call the school psychologist or well first of all I would say that we have wonderful school psychologist I wholeheartedly agree with you on that we also have counselors and we have social workers so we have a mental
134health Team in every single building and uh Tara walr was it just last month that she was here so Tara walrod was here last month who is our coordinator of counseling and she shared the the multiple things that that are going on around student wellbeing uh but I would say as a former counselor myself that if you are seeing uh your child change and we we've heard that I've watched it with my own some uh family members um if you're seeing drastic changes if you're seeing uh changes in mood and behavior that's the time to reach out um and I what I heard Tara say last time is just call the call the main office and say you want to talk to the mental health Team they're going to get you to the right person
135or if you know you're a child counseler or social worker of course call them directly but I would say you always want to reach out when you see those things happening um whether they're a virtual student they're in hybrid right now or anytime we may have a number of of children for example that that may be less interested in the online environment or just just interested in general would that be also something that absolutely the psychologist could help are there other resources that we might have available so again I would start with that mental health professional within the building um they're they're going to be able to help you figure out exactly who that is and if there are um academic resources that we need to to to get with that student or what the
136Mental Health Resource is that they might need is that information fairly accessible on on the website that would help parents to be able to find that fairly quickly um yeah it is I'm just looking at these little brochures that are that you happen to get uh talks about mental health and Tara and team have put these together uh and they are available and they absolutely are available on the website and again I wouldn't even say you have to search for it just call the main office and say you want to talk to a mental health professional thank you Dr M uh other questions on any of the topics um I'm I'm just want to confirm make sure I understand our our timeline here so our next opportunity to consider learning mode is a week from
137today it is that's on November 16th and that's when you'll pull the numbers yes yes so November 16th is when we announced that we would look at that again and we've announced what we're going to do through uh Thanksgiving break so November 30th is when this next one would start what if we if we make a change next week okay thank you others you know we had we had Sports on this topic I just you know we're wrapping up fall Sports I'm looking at do David stub are you a doctor yet close David Stubblefield Dr Maran as well pretty good Seasons mitigation I know we had a few instances here and there but as we look to winter sports any comments or thoughts on that or mitigation factors that we'll be looking at if you
138want to come up that'd be great and I'll start um so our all of our winter sports um B girls and boys basketball uh girls and boys wrestling um boys swimming or girls bo boys swimming I can't remember which one was which and then girls bowling are the what we have and they have all been working on um what the mitigating factors would be uh and they are working with David and the ads of course in their buildings and then they remember we're running all of this through the KU sports medicine partnership that we have um as well so I don't know if David wants to talk to some specific things that they are talking about at this point yeah our lessons learned from the fall I mean I think we've had some nice success
139we done some good things as you've acknowledged and we've seen some great emails I know jod alluded to one last month or the month before about what we're seeing from our coaches but just Lessons Learned through the fall cuz I know it's been there's been a lot of hurdles and it's been tough to to keep an eye on yeah I I I guess I would start by just you know talking about the partnership with you know our coaching staffs uh and our athletic trainers uh I think they have done a a fantastic job of of ensuring that those protocols uh are in place and again those are the those are the folks that are work with those with those uh students every single day and I think it says a lot that you know we
140are we finish a lot of those Seasons uh with uh some issues uh but not completely shutting down programs and again that speaks to uh the protocols uh and the cooperation uh that we had in place can I ask I don't want to I I don't want to I mean it's not my job to get into the weeds and the details but can you just kind of at a high level walk me through what some of the things might look like because it is going to be different with Inside Sports versus you know the outside in the large stadium and allowing you know for family member Spectators that sort thing so how I mean again you know this is your all's decision on how to implement it and do it I appreciate that but C
141can you help reassure me that we have plans in place and what it's going to to look like to make sure that you know if do this that it's going to be safe for the kids yeah so uh very similar to what we did for the fall uh we had our our coaches uh work uh collaboratively uh at in for each sport uh along with uh an athletic director uh from the district to talk about what are some of those uh protocols that we're going to put in place uh we're going to continue to uh talk about uh you know the need to take temperatures on a daily basis uh to interview your uh athletes as they come into that practice space uh in terms of how they're feeling uh logging their attendance uh so
142that we can later contact Trace uh the also you know hand washing and San hand sanitation uh stations I think one of the big things that that people have talked about is is really uh creating uh these cohorts of groups uh that are practicing and trying to social distance as much as possible in these Sports again uh you know kind of like T Tanya talked about crowd size uh we'll limit crowd size again uh for our winter sports I know we you know we're talking about even reducing um as we move inside uh reducing the number of people that are inside those spaces as well so uh those are those are all kind conversations that continue to be have uh we are uh working with our coaching staffs right now uh as we move into
143uh these Seasons so that they are all aware of these protocols and we can continue to adjust uh as needed great question does can you sign off on all the mitigation things they they're so they're they're they're not signing off on anything they're reviewing supporting giving recommendations uh a lot of times when I send them something in terms of of a protocol uh what they'll do is they'll say hey have you have you thought about this in terms of you know where you're bringing kids into a space do you have a place to isolate if a kid does present with a temperature or does present with symptoms what are you doing uh with those students if you recognize that in a facility and so those are little those are conversations that are we're having back
144and forth that will uh increase our protocol thank you what discussions oh sorry no go ahead Michelle and then I I know Jody what discussions have um the coaches and um KU whoever that is talking about the mitigating factors that we're going to employ masks what role have they will they play yeah uh as often as possible uh you know for wrestling purposes you know will uh it's very difficult obviously to wrestle with the mask on uh so those are things in terms of uh when I'm waiting to wrestle when I'm when I'm at practice and I'm not engaged in a physical uh exertion uh do I have a mask on all coaches are wearing masks anybody that's not participating is wearing a mask uh so those are the conversations that are being had um
145how well did we do um with consistency um overall with our full Sports um yeah uh I I think uh it was pretty consistent across the district uh in terms of mask uh I think there there were some instances that did pop up where uh we got a little LAX on on some of those protocols uh but uh as we were made aware of those uh I know our building athletic directors our building principles uh address those uh situations individually and it like I said it it was pretty consistent across across the district and I think the the most important thing is I you know I I knew that I know that those kids wanted to participate so the more somebody wants to participate the the the more they're going to collaborate and uh definitely
146follow those protocols anything else with that Jody did you want to dive de mik SS did you have something no good anybody else any other questions on this anything else for David um I know we've got some decisions to make this week survey comes back Wednesday closes okay so we start figuring out some of the information the next day correct on that okay and and obviously getting significant amount of input on that right so Dr CER is going to come up now and walk us through um the the second part of the learning mode the reason it was decisions here is that families are have been asked to make a decision for second semester as I begin to um speak about this this portion of our planning for second semester um first and foremost I
147would really like to uh compliment the the conscientious attitude that um our staff has taken in preparation for second semester in particular um kellot and Adam wessell and then our academic Services team our princip princial our counselors and our teachers in terms of ensuring that second semester uh the transition to second semester goes smoothly for students um the changes that are occurring second semester are a direct result of the feedback that we've received from our parents our staff and our students uh specific to Virtual Ed and that feedback has been uh very helpful to us um the first thing I'd like to point out is again is parents choose iners or virtual Ed for their par uh for their students just a reminder that iners has three legs and that is a student can either
148be in full distance learning experience the hybrid model or be fully in person with the virtual Ed option there's no impact of the learning mode change uh or uh decision so a knows they have their routine set at home and um that uh is often times the nod the parents give to Virtual Ed in Virtual Ed synchronous and asynchronous learning uh will continue so again every family is asked to make a selection for second semester for each student in their household and how they do that is certainly uh by visiting um our district website I would like to uh remind you as I did at our last board meeting that during this time frame November 5th through November 16th as parents are considering this for their children we want to remember that there will be
149because of shifts in student population there very well could be shifts in teacher assignments and that is at all three levels that being stated we are uh prepared to very uh cautiously consider where current students are currently placed to avoid those teacher changes but there are going to be instances where that is inevitable additionally we've received questions about students um and whether or not they will get to return to their home school I'm virtual Ed while I go back to my home school if I choose in person the answer to that question is yes and we do not anticipate opening this window again there will be a one window selection period um we've been asked about why there's one window selection period there certainly are intricacies to Staffing um developing Master schedules uh particularly at
150middle school and high school these changes are impacting Master schedules and none of these things are things that EAS are easily done or undone so again just to revisit the timeline that uh family decision is November 5th through the 16th that closes the night of the 16th we understand obviously families um are awaiting uh some in some instances to make their decision uh that which you just talked about on November 16th through November 17th through the 20th uh right up to Winter recess we will have staff um we will be revisiting Staffing assignments and then we will be revising schedules for buildings and then for students and then it is our hope that we will have after winter recess we'll come back uh do any cleanup and then January 7th through the 15th we'll uh
151give parents and students the opportunity to preview their schedules prior to those being enacted on January 19th giving parents and students the opportunity to see if there's anything that one isn't to their liking or two if there is a glitch what I tell you is there is there there's a glitch we don't anticipate many of those and here's why because because of the personal attention that's being paid to each student's schedule um as we go forward into second semester so we did survey you've talked about the broader survey this evening we did survey specifically our virtual Ed um parent population and we ask students and teachers also to respond based on that survey and you can see the number of respondents there about 49% % at the time indicated that they were going to remain
152virtual um in the feedback that we received we heard two priorities an increase in live synchronous time and more of a movement toward a bell to bell schedule if you will in other words mirror if you will closer to the inperson student experience particularly at high school there's going to be an impact again to the shift in student population I've talked about that already with teacher assignments potentially in-person class sizes and honestly the converse could be true to Virtual Ed depending upon the families that may choose in person uh to Virtual Ed so what are those changes at elementary primarily Elementary remains unchanged uh we may be looking a little bit more closely at some um more asynchronous time here and there for students we understand those uh younger stud students need some more time
153with parents to do some work a few more breaks but generally speaking Elementary remains unchanged you see a point here about canvas canvas navigation and the usability of that being friendly for students and parents all levels we have heard loud and clear our teachers have done a tremendous job with canvas and quite frankly hats off to our parents who be who have become really intimately familiar with canvas this year um as compared to other years we know it hasn't been easy uh kudos to our teachers uh who are learning to do more and more within canvas but we are committed at all three levels to have improved navigation experiences again based on feedback that we've received at the middle level a virtual Ed there will be increased live synchronous time with teachers in the area
154of our electives so electives in many cases are 20 minutes that is going to go away again that's based on feedback and really uh highlevel collaboration that's occurring amongst our counselors and principles at the middle school level making this happen and um physical education ver uh virtual learning skills those are moving to a full asynchronous experience and again canvas at high school as I've already mentioned that Bell to Bell if you will type schedule is important so we are scheduling students into seven period day I know you're familiar with and you've heard about students being double booked and those will all be eliminated you've also heard concerns about and we've heard from teachers too uh the struggle in uh teaching classes that are um backto back 45 minute blocks and maybe in one class maybe
155they had 23 students and the next session of that same class maybe there were seven students that experience is certainly different for those students so that um is also uh going away and then again canvas um um being more navigable if you will at high school will also um occur so really as we think about January 19th we're thinking about that almost as another start of the school year quite frankly because we're going to have students change the mode that they choose and so we're going to ensure transitions those that are new to inperson kindergarten inperson sixth or nth grade we'll ensure we have transitions for them the converse of that if they are new to Virtual experience we're going to have onboarding if you will for those families to help those uh students understand
156the virtual Ed experience and how that is different than being um an in-person learner so we're going to talk to and help students understand that um and then also our students that go in person for the first time they're unfamiliar with the mitigating uh uh measures that we have in place and we want students to become familiar with those as well so we will provide transition opportunities for them so again November 5th through the 16th parents go to our district website and really follow a stepbystep process and again we ask every family to choose this if a family does not go to the district website and make a choice for their families and then and November 16th passes though will give reminders to families that 16th passes we will assume that a family chooses to
157maintain uh within the mode that they've already selected for this school year um I've talked again about that timeline this is again a semester long decision just as it was this first um semester and um again our information is on the district website if families have questions we do encourage the family to contact the building to speak through that with the district uh I'm sorry building administrator a counselor um or a teacher and then if uh the questions or concerns are more Global in nature certainly we're here at district office to assist as well Kelly and I happy to answer any questions you might have about the changes for second semester questions for Dr carer Mike sites well thank you Dr carer this isn't necessarily a question for you however it's a question for Dr
158punswick um and it has to do again with Subs um we're going to increase the number of students either in person and it's a question it's not a statement um we're going to increase the number of of students in the school um how does that impact our requirement for subs or does it or I'm I'm just trying to get my head around [Music] whether the need for Subs is going to go up go down or stay the same and I I just I I can't logic through through it could you help me I guess you don't have all the variables the variables being um an increasing an increasing rate of infection sorry cor so those variables and then also how many sections will we have that are fully in person once individuals um are identifying
159where they're going to go so if we have that and sections more teachers that are in those modes yes but there's a lot of variables we don't know but right now would most likely be very similar to what it is in terms of what we're seeing right now don't see it getting worse but you certainly don't see it getting better I don't know the answer I'm looking for some some hope somewhere yeah I'm I'm a an optimistic individual I I think that we're going to be you know seeing the light at the end of the tunnel um but as you saw is it yeah yeah it's just it's not trending that way right so you got to look at the data that we have today that coupled with knowing that we may have addition sections
160those two things don't necessarily paint a Rosy picture okay you thank you yeah so no not knowing all the varials but those two data points today as we said on November 9th it it it's not perfect picture thank you yeah I would also mention to you that we've taken calls just as we did this summer um but we've taken calls um since this went out last week and received emails uh of parents asking really for advice about I'm just not sure what to do what if I can't make this decision the no November 16th because of said reasons if parents continue to be concerned about the virus um in terms of the impact of you know changing modes hybrid to in person to full distance that's not working for them or their family uh they
161continue to be concerned about maybe mitigation uh measures and buildings we really lead them to and suggest virtual um so that is how we're advising those families um as they reach out to us and have those questions where they continue just to be to just be stuck and really struggle we suggest that perhaps virtual may may be for them so just a quick question more of a tactical question but on canvas as you talked across the levels about things changing will the building princip communicate the changes to parents or how will that be done just to ensure everybody kind of knows how things will look different sure well certainly uh building principles will be aware um our Blended learning team has really been amazing through Brad moer working with teachers to help teachers understand canvas
162and any changes would get translated out to parents in terms of how to or you may notice XY Z has changed this is why this should help you we understand for instance knowing when assignments are due has really been hard we're o overemphasizing if we will the use of the calendar within canvas to assist with that one one stop Etc so we'll make sure parents are aware okay thank you I'm gonna try to give you a softball uh because I think I know the answer but it Bears repeating um at the beginning of this semester we had some significant issues with scheduling um I don't want to know the details because I won't understand all the it stuff but could you help um make us feel good that that scheduling issue that cropped up with
163kids having you know multiple sessions at the same time and some classes with too many I mean you you you you remember what occurred um and they were they were fixed quickly but it did cause some consternation just help reassure us that that that won't happen again there are some things that you experien that you learn from that you never want to do again that would be one of them um and so really this stepbystep process that quite frankly um Kelly a design for parents um allows us to do things quite honestly by hand student by student so that we can avoid that and then those things will be put into Synergy for and parent view for students for students to view thank you Mike for that that's a and great question that right there
164what what Katie just talked about the the hand uh scheduling doing it step by step is why we have to have them in November 16th because our staff our principals our counselors our district office staff at the beginning of this year worked like from almost 24 hours a day trying to get that thing to work so we we have to have it in in enough time so that we don't have that debacle again so that we are all prepared when second semester starts and I would just say too not only so we can avoid the debacle if you will but quite frankly we're doing that so we can give the students what they're asking for what they're wanting they have a path towards this uh courses and graduation Etc and so we want the kiddos
165as much as possible uh to experience the courses that they desire and so that requires our our close study of that and quite frankly again kudos to our Middle School and High School staff in particular because the level coordination that's occurring across buildings with schedules I've done this 20 some years I've never seen anything like it so kudos to to them for doing that thank you Mike for that candid question thank you for saying the word debacle and being honest on some things Michelle Benjamin I was just gonna say thank you Katie and to your entire staff I mean this has been an extraordinary experience for all of us and I know that scheduling by hand 6,000 potentially students is just enormous there's just no words for it so thank you for everything you guys
166are looking at the hill that you're about to try to climb again but with better gear this time I hope um I also just want to say with canvas um kudos to our teachers for I mean they have shifted so much to be able to do all of this and um the job that we're asking them to do is pretty difficult um the only complaint I have ever heard from any parent about canvas and I'm sure there's others but the ones I hear consistently is just where are the assignments like it's just different in so many different places different courses one holds it in modules one has it in assessments one has it on the calendar um and so that that has caused some struggle with students not knowing where to turn things in how
167often to check things um you know and each teacher is different and they all have their own routines but just really emphasizing maybe using the calendar or having all the assignments in one spot per school so that the parents and the teachers and the students are all on that same one page by all means teachers need their freedom to be able to teach the way that they feel best and use canvas the way that works best for them but when it comes to that information I think that that um would be really helpful for All Families so that's my advice if you want to take it yeah and thank you as well I I haven't heard much since that week one that we talked about so I appreciate you're in your teams all your efforts
168there in regards to the virtual learning Amy Tyson I just had a quick one and Dr Maran maybe you can answer if not Dr Collier when you have taken calls and questions related to parents needing to decide on the learning mode for next semester what are the what's the correlation that you're hearing just from a board education perspective about why they need to know what we're going to do in December um learning mode wise to help them make a decision for uh J the January second semester I think from what I can gather from the I haven't taken tons of calls I've taken lots of emails I guess on this U but they want to know uh how the board's going to make decision or how the district's going to make decision what's what's the
169board's policy going to be that we're going to use to to make those decisions U the other thing I hear sometimes is that who knows what's going to happen with the virus in January February March which none of us know that um we so those are the things out here okay so along those lines um we're set through Thanksgiving next Monday you're going to make a decision on the learning mode then for the roughly three weeks up until winter break correct and then when is the timeline for the following decision before they leave we would make a decision okay so the one of the last few days before winter break you're going to announce what school mode is going to be in January okay thank you any more questions on that okay on to the
170next one introduce proposed High School course description guide changes so Kelly a is coming up to the podium here and this is the annual um presentation that Kelly is going to uh do with you and this is high school right so good evening it's good to talk about something that's a a routine normal thing so let's celebrate that uh I'm here to present you the proposed changes to the high school uh course description guide uh with the events of this year the changes are rather minimal uh first I'd like to begin by reviewing the process by which curriculum changes happen in Blue Valley um there's several steps that have happened prior to me standing here uh the process begins with a course change proposal which is initiated by a teacher or an administrator and these
171uh proposals are vetted through the high school curriculum and instruction administrators and the board of education curriculum and instruction advisory committee um feedbacks received comments are made and and often we'll we'll seek additional feedback from other stakeholder groups tonight we're at the point in the process where we present the final proposals for for your consideration no action will be taken tonight but rather at next month's meeting additionally this week's uh this these final proposals will go to the board of ed cni committees uh this Wednesday for additional comments so this time I will walk you through um the changes that we are proposing tonight uh in the area of Career and Technical education we have one proposed change um it's in the area of personal finance currently our personal finance course is a half credit
172elective course curriculum has been Rewritten and has a significant emphasis on technology integration for this reason the proposal is to allow personal finance to become one of the courses that will satisfy the Technology Credit please absolutely um I'm really curious about this one is this the only personal finance course that we yes there's other um pieces of personal finance in different strands and other Career and Technical education courses but this is the only course dedicated to that to this yes and and you said it was predominantly um Technology based uh I know it the curriculum had been Rewritten and now has a significant technology integration component so budgeting credit cards and how to use technology to um develop personal finance skills okay thank you sure the um second proposed change on the screen is in
173the area of art um this is a name change we would propose to changing the name of the current class which is id8 to innovate to design lab for the 2021 School 2022 school year this course uh title better aligns with the course objectives and the C the uh student experience in the world language Department all of the proposed changes are natural next steps in long-term program advancements uh there has been a multi-year wave of changes to curriculum that requires us to add one course and retire two uh we are next year going to offer Chinese honors five if you can imagine will be our fifth year of offering Chinese at the high school level I cannot believe it so we're asking to add that course and then um because of the changes the middle
174school program a few years ago we have been able to Sunset the 0. five classes and this has been ongoing for a few years now uh this year is the final year that we have students in French or Spanish 3.5 and these courses will no longer be needed after this year so we propose retiring them can I ask a quick question sure um I I know with the addition of the Chinese emersion programs that we we've struggled to find teachers maybe for Chinese in the past at some point and so adding this and and continuing to grow the program at the high school level do you have concerns that we're going to be able to fully staff or you feel like the the hours you know you just move them around it work yeah it'll
175be dependent on on enrollment obviously um we haven't had as much difficulty finding Chinese teachers at the secondary level was more the immersion program where um I don't you know they're just a little harder to find so um I don't anticipate issues finding we're actually building a reputation and we're we especially with KU help um helping um we we actually are attracting people coming to teach in our district in Chinese absolutely okay Performing Arts uh in the area of Performing Arts they have one proposed change um The Proposal is to add a third tier for orchestra um only in um schools that are experiencing a high level of enrollment uh this tier would only be offered when student numbers require the additional level in schools where the enrollment doesn't necess necessitate a third level they
176would continue to with the current car structure and differentiate within those groups which are concert Orchestra and symphonic and then the last one we have for you tonight is an are of social study our proposal is to begin to offer AP World History in place of AP European History um AP World offers a more comprehensive and Global Perspective to the teaching of History additionally AP world is offered in 70% more schools across our country it is accepted at 31% more colleges for credit for college credit and there's three and a three4 the times the number number of AP World tests that are given each year than AP Euro so this is kind of we might even be behind the the wave on this one so that would be a switch out we would discontinue AP
177Euro and move to AP world that wraps up my uh proposed course changes for next year at the high school level and I can take any questions any other additional questions any questions from go just one on on timing uh we'll approve or disapprove this next month next month that correct correct thank you any AP Chinese questions that's next year we get to add that and was next year y good great job exciting stuff thank you Kelly next up assessment overview this is another kind of normal presentation that we do every year uh we have an assessment overview uh we waited uh on extra month this time just to make sure that we had our ACT results in and so Adam Wade is here uh to go through that all right well thank you Dr
178margan so we are going to start by uh just talking about what's new in assessment in 2021 so uh just highlighting some of our testing processes up here so fall map testing um we do in grades 2 through eight started that on September 21st ran it through October 16th students tested in different modes so if you're an element student who was in face-to-face learning mode you tested in person second grade virtual students came to district office or Hilltop to test third through fifth grade virtual Ed and all middle school students regardless of learning mode tested virtually uh PSAT National Merit Scholarship qualifying test is the second one listed there um so we did that on the the standard day which this year was was about a month back in the middle of October um one
179thing that's new this year with regard to National Merit Scholarship test in PSAT College Board added a second National PSAT testing day on January 26th um likely in response to students missing that October day so um opportunity for students to to test on January 26th it's important though to note that students can only test once per PSAT guidelines uh so as in previous years with PSAT 8 eighth graders have the option to participate um it's just an eighth grade version of the PSAT like it says middle school students in the in-person learning mode will test in their buildings uh virtual Ed eth graders will come in Hilltop to test um currently we have about 250 virtual Ed eth graders coming in to take that test at Hilltop over a couple of days next week and
180spread out over a multitude of different sessions um and then act so like previous years Juniors can take the state funded act Andor state funded act work keys exams in February so that's some of the new processes um so now let's look at the data so one of the things that that we've heard mentioned a number of times tonight already uh what do we know about student learning in light of the pandemic so uh you know results are starting to slowly come in we're starting to get some of our normed measures starting to get some pieces of information from those so what I'm going to do here is I'm going to look at the data we have so far uh which comes from a few different sources and covers all grade levels K12 all right
181so let's start with a cadians um and before we look at the numbers here and I've turned to the slide because it says aadience but the thing to keep in mind here is that aadience is kind of new to us so aadience is our literacy screener uh Dr CER talked about it a little bit earlier it was new to our K1 students last fall um so that's why the trend data that I'm going to talk about in a minute is just for K and one it's because their second year doing it basically U okay I admin administered in the fall winter and spring and provides uh skill specific growth and achievement data a number of different subtests are given most of which are administered verbally in one-on-one so it's an opportunity for the teacher to
182work with the student and hear them read uh different subtests are given at different grade levels so for example factoring into the kindergarten composite score letter naming fluency and first sound fluency those are the subtests for kindergarten for first grade in the fall the subtest are letter naming phon name segmentation and nonsense word fluency so those are pieces all factoring into those scores so the the numbers listed represent are the percent of students meeting the fall Benchmark or scoring above as measured by the single composite score so keep in mind we're lumping in some different tests here so at kindergarten we're lumping in the two tests I talked about at first grade we're lumping in uh the three or actually there's a fourth test too that that we're talking about so you can see in
1832019 before Co and 2020 after Co kindergarten scores pretty similar first grade scores relatively similar um it's important to note here and it's one thing that that we need to mention given the kind of discrepancy between kindergarten and first grade kindergarten fall benchmarks are set relatively low because there's no expectation that a first that a kindergartner is going to come into school with specific literacy skills okay so really and and as we're adjusting to this measure the big takeaway is really that we have the same proportion of kindergarteners and first graders around Benchmark as we did at this time last year okay um other piece with the Cadance first year of administering to all Elementry students so at this time next year we'll have Trend data for 25 also Dr CER mentioned that it's going
184to get extended on up in future years so pretty soon we'll have more data with that um last final piece on aadience is it relates to to um the state dyslexia task force uh we had started down the road of investigating early literacy screeners and some schools had even started piloting acadians when those recommendations from that task force came down um so when this those recommendations came down and said hey Acadian is one of the the possible measures you can use that that worked out kind of well for us it's kind of a win-win um so before I move on questions on aadience okay all right so let's look at the map Reading tests so again we've heard map data mentioned a couple of times tonight um you're going to see different sets of data
185different kinds of numbers and looking at reading versus math so this is our measure in 28 this is the data we have right now so as mentioned earlier second through eighth graders took the math test this fall this chart compares the average percentile for Blue Valley students in 20 20 as compared to 2019 both in the fall so like if you were to look at the second grade columns for example and compare the blue and orange bars you can see that before covid in Fall 2019 the average Blue Valley second grader had a percentile rank of 65.7 it's kind of weird to average percentiles but it gives you a good summary uh whereas the during covid percentile so the more recent one this year was 68.2 so relatively speaking and granted it's not the same
186group of students right they were first graders last year they're second graders this year but relatively speaking you know that seems to be a plus As you move through different grade levels you see kind of a mixed bag at elementary you see the the during covid numbers being higher the average percentile higher at two through five and you see it being a little lower at six and eight so that kind of sums up the reading percentile um averaging piece map shows something a little bit different okay so looking at the same column leftmost piece uh fall 2019 uh average Blue Valley percentile was 66.4 fall 2020 average percentile was 66.3 not a huge difference at second grade you look at different grade levels you see some bigger differences especially as kids tend to get a
187little bit older okay one thing that's interesting e8th grade shows the biggest drop off in both reading and in math whereas second you know the younger that kid it kind of seems like the less um movement so to speak uh one thing that that we think is important here um and this coming from from a former math teacher perspective also you know so math particularly right has a lot of skills and the map test measures how well are students doing with those particular skills so in some ways this data is kind of a positive reflection on our teachers because we know our teachers didn't have as much time with kids last last spring and those results are kind of bearing itself out right there all right a potential um not as much gain of skills
188as we might normally see Adam can ask a question sure is it I know it's not the the the group you're looking at is not exactly the same but I'm going to assume or can I assume that the group that took the map test in Fall of 19 is this fundamentally the same group that took the test in Fall of 20 you know I think that's a relatively safe assumption when you're talking about thousands of kids right so so my question is can I look at the fall of 19 second graders and compare them at at a percentile level with the fall of 20 third graders yeah yeah I mean I think you can I think you can because it's the same cohort and that would be another way to look at the data if
189you were to look at fall 192nd grade fall 203rd grade because you're right that is by and large going to be the same kids and the only reason I yeah I mean this tells me what our second graders did year overy year but it doesn't tell me whether those kids are getting better or not and I'm going to assume that a second grader in 19 was a third grader in in 20 right and that tell okay I just want to make sure I understand your numbers yeah no you're right and that would be another way certainly to look at this like you know I I would say that if you were to look at it this way it may give you a little more of the lens of like how is um you know how
190are kids coming into second grade as a whole comparatively but you're right if we were to like go diagonal here and look at second grade fall 19 with third grade fall 20 by cohort grouping that would give us a different a different kind of analysis though though probably relatively similarish we would think is is is is is yeah we'll go with is that's right depends on where you look right okay all right yeah yay for ish the data person and I'm going with ish all right gotta love it sticking to the script okay so hey real quick on the map going back to map so just looking at it you and I know we've looked at it prior as well so minimal drop it looks like until we get to the seventh and eighth grade
191where it's a little more extreme theot yeah we're we're seeing the older the kid goes at least in math kind kind of the bigger the drop and really when you look at reading um kids tended you know at least within the same grade level kids tended to be about the same or a little better again until 8th grade right and reading looks up second third fourth grade right and then a little bit and fifth yeah a little down and and start dipping a little bit and it gets a little more extreme in seventh and eth reading not bad math a little more severe yeah okay so Adam with map so this gives us systemwide dat tells us second graders overall but what's the real the real benefit of the map test so the biggest advantage
192to map test is that teachers get very good instructional level data um relating to how are kids where kids at with particular standards so if I'm a third grade teacher for example I'm going to be able to very pretty quickly pull a report that shows all of the third grade standards and it's aligned to whatever state you're in so in our case it's aligned to Kansas they could look at the third grade Kansas standards and go okay where's my K where are my kids at with this particular standard so if you're a teacher and you go gosh you know I'm going to teach this standard on this day where are my kids at map now granted you know kids are doing this test in one day so it's it's a somewhat small sample but it
193at least gives you a rough estimate of where the kid probably is and does it give uh parents individual results on kids at the end of the year will they be able to see progress that their student student has made yeah so you know one one thing that we lost a little bit last year and I I think we may have heard it a little bit in parent comments you know by not spring testing in map you know last year parents couldn't see the growth data you know and this year when when we are able to test in the spring and and with the virtual pieces put into place you know we'll be able to do it no matter how um but you'll get that fall to Spring growth data map sets a growth Target
194for each individual kid you know and parents are able to see did my kid meet the growth Target a much more macro view than what the teacher would want of where's where my kids's at on this particular standard yeah all right yeah yeah Petri kids falling behind and so so the map scores give you a a view of where the growth is so but how can that translate into either you know say parents is with G yeah my child's at you know 59% you know what do I need to do to help Foster additional growth because they're they're falling behind right so that's a great question and and one thing that's most important to keep in mind when you look at summary data like this is you're combining thousands of kids right so you know
195just because we're saying this is the trend doesn't mean that one parent goes my kid went from the 70th percentile to the 30th what on Earth do I do okay and that's where the conversation between a parent and an individual teacher is going to come back to play so you know I I I think as parents see concerns and one of the things that came out is that when parents get sent their schore reports there's a letter that goes along with that and that letter very expressly says you know if you have concerns about your child's score talk to your child's teacher because basically the teacher is going to have the ability to go into the system and go gosh well I can see you know on this standard this standard and this standard your
196kid is is thriving but right here wow there's something going on you know and that point too the teacher might also be able to say something like you know I'm seeing that here but don't worry about it because we're going to cover that in depth next week or wow that's something they should have got last year holy smokes alarms you know so that is the power of that convers on the parent report too they get like General strand area so like with math they'll see like a geometry score and a statistics score and and you know again they would have to ask the teacher for more detail but at the very least it would give them a high level picture yeah all right so let's go to act um so the graph on the left
197here shows the composite score for blue Valley's senior classes over the last six years so that that is the blue graph um and then the state scores are in orange there so for example you can see that the 2020 Blue Valley Senior cohort had an act composite average of 24.3 while the state had an act composite average of 20.4 that's a little bit down from 2019 when the Blue Valley average was 25.2 and the state was 21.1 and again those numbers are right on the slide um one thing though that you'll kind of notice and that that may cause a question and it's why I've included the graph on the right is when you compare kind of the blue Trend to the orange Trend the gaps between the two points in each year remain pretty
198consistent okay so one takeaway from that graph is it from 2015 to 2020 the blue valley mean is about three and a half to Four Points higher than the state mean okay so one thing that comes into play Then is well why is that all right why why did our scores go down by 0. n and Kansas has go down by 7 in this last year so one thing that's import an important factor to consider Here Is the participation rate of students so this particular group of seniors class of 2020 was the first group that had a funded act paid for by the state of Kansas so that's why in the class of 2020 94 a half% of seniors are coming away with an ACT score all right whereas in the class of 2019 it
199was 82 and a. half% participation rate going up 12 points like to think we're probably giving students some opportunities with that test that they may not have been able to take advantage of outside of the school day had they not had that so um an important factor there to kind of consider that that participation rate went up as the score went down um the other piece here because we've kind of talked about the impact of Co on all of these different pieces um so in a Way co has an impact here but it's probably not huge and here's why with the graduating class of 2020 The Only Way co would have impacted their score so the final score that goes into this report is a student's last score so you take the ACT five times
200the score that goes into this is your fifth score regardless of whether it's higher or lower than your fourth or your third or whatever okay so that said it is possible that in April and May and in June when there wasn't a lot of testing going on there were some student students who were going you know who were seniors that were going to test again all right we don't know that we don't know if that would have necessarily helped the scores even but it is a a potential Factor here in relation to co okay hey Adam I got a quick question on that yeah so so I get the difference between 19 and 20 yeah potentially Co related or maybe even having to do with a greater sample right but if you look at compare
201it to 19 17 or 18 do we have any idea why the precipitous drop in 25.9 to 25.2 now I know we're yeah talking about the margins here sure but is is there some sort of understanding of how we got to that point even though it doesn't mean necessarily a whole white from a from a whole number standpoint sure but it is a fractional Trend going down yeah you know I that that one I would have to look at a little more carefully and probably on the individual student level um to be able to have a good answer to that question um so at I would argue that is 2016 maybe the outlier um you look at 2015 is 25.4 yeah we we did have a great jump that year I I would have to
202look at that class too U but then 25.4 25.5 25.2 fairly consistent within there I don't know again I'd have to look at that that graduating class well even if you look at the State numbers you go to 21.8 and then it continually goes down to 21.1 yeah so is there something in the test that's creating that you not to my knowledge no um I you know I will add and I I heard I heard a comment from back there about perfect scores you know there there is a there's a question regarding the perfect scores and on the ACT this happens a lot because kids can chase that perfect score so depending upon the number of kids you have in a particular year that are trying to drive for that 36 and then stop once
203they hit that 36 right because if you hit it you're done you know so that that would be a piece that may help us unlock that is if we were to look you know is there an abundant number of 36s in 2016 as compared to the years around that that's a possibility um and that drives that drives a second corollary question if I may sure have you looked at the distribution of scores this is the arithmetic mean right have you looked at the distribution of scores over the dist the number of scores so the the the median may be something completely different right right and it would be especially interesting to understand I'm not asking for this information right that's good because I don't have it yeah I kind of fig I I also don't
204necessarily want you to go get it okay but my point is in 2020 right that distribution may have changed dramatically yeah um based on um the the the free and and I'm not trying to correlate anything I'm just really curious yeah I I I think you're on to something there without you know without having it right in front of me and without knowing that I think if we were to for example look at like groups of scores like how many kids are scoring between a 32 and a 36 or a 28 and a 32 you know that kind of analysis could yield some answers to that question um but you know but but I do think you're right I you know with the higher participation rate we pulled in some kids who wouldn't have taken
205it on a Saturday most likely and that you know they may not have scored great or maybe they did we don't know well that's the other thing yeah that we don't know yeah and the higher participation rate is a good thing it's a wonderful a wonderful thing even if our scores Dro it's a wonderful thing yeah 94.5 is huge and easy math big bigger sample size Patrick alluded to it that score is going to dip a little bit I couldn't agree more going from 80 two to 94 I mean that's a big jump and that's a good thing yeah yeah can I ask real quick um this is the best score no last score the last score last score so I've actually done a little bit of analysis if you go and you super score
206like a lot of colleges do if you're to supercore our kids you get an addition of about a 6 to a point8 depending on the graduating class okay so just varies year to year thinking ahead for next year just having gone through this a lot of the this year seniors took it that free day in February and did not take it again right and so they I mean usually right when you take the test you have your Baseline it's kind of like where you work up from and so I would fully expect this to Y drop quite a bit and I don't want anyone to freak out next year when that score goes down because those kids a lot of them did not have a chance to take the test again and improve it and
207get to that last test which would have been considerably higher yeah well you know we will see so that that class of 2020 they were the first group to take it as juniors in 2019 so this group had the same opportunity now they did lose some Junior spring testing event times lost in they lost a lot of chances there was one or two they could have maybe done it this fall to follow up and and the majority of kids probably just didn't do it I don't know I'm just saying it would not be shocking next year if that thing I would say is that there are colleges across the country who are waving that requirement so if I didn't do very well I may say why would I need to do that now because my
208colleges said I'm in and I don't need it yep yep and did you say if they use best scores it would go up to maybe a 25 yeah yeah I I would when i' when I've looked at that it's it stays under a point increase if you were to Super score for every kid I had no idea it was the last score to be honest with you I thought it was the best so yeah yeah interesting yeah yeah I I didn't know that until I was in this job you know I got right yeah it's standard but I just yeah I never knew yeah Patrick I got a particularly difficult question but but I think it's probably going to resonate throughout our community here at some level which is we're in this pandemic we've got
209um a number of challenges when it comes to either in person or virtual learning for a variety of reasons some of it may be the child some of it may be uh the for um some of it may be the teacher some of it may be the software um and and I'm not being critical what I'm saying is is that creates an environment where each child's unique skill set may not be aligned correctly yeah um versus one system or or one teacher or whatever yeah um and so so the question will be um what about what would a parent think or as it relates to let's say you got a freshman or a sophomore right and they haven't really jumped into the act and so so what kind of strategies are we thinking about that
210may be able to support or assist that future act environment or even if you got an eighth grader right um because the question is there's going to be a gap of Knowledge from from one child to the next that in theory we're going to have to make up somewhere and so we thought about that knowledge Gap up in some sort of future environment going forward assuming we get through this pandemic in the next six months um you know that that that's an interesting question um it's a hard question I I will I will say that um I would anticipate at least in terms of act where skill gaps would manifest more than anywhere else again as math as opposed to English or reading or science because those are less skill-based and a little more conceptual
211so to speak um you know math math is going to come back to skills so I I mean I guess the best answer I have for you at this point is this is where our our prioritizing of priority standards um and and aligning assessments with those priority standards um will hopefully pay pay dividends but but I would anticipate that math would be more affected at least in terms of act than other content areas would be thank you all right so uh couple of quick AP data points here um this is our last data point for high school so the gray bar here shows the percent of students in a senior class who have taken an AP course during their time in high school uh and the blue bar in each year shows the percent of
212students who have taken at least one AP test so gray is the class blue is the test um overall the course taken percentage is pretty steady um 67 it looks like is the low 74 is the high uh test taken ranges from about 47.9 to about 53.4 pretty narrow bands in there we're staying pretty consistent with ap one thing regarding covid on this slide Co would not have affected the course taken numbers because kids were enrolled and in school before that it might affect this year but it wouldn't or 2021 but it's not going to affect 2020 test taken though know Co may be playing a little bit of a role um you know this is this is anecdotal obviously not working in a building but you did hear about students deciding not going to
213test this is too much going on at home right now so I'm not going to take that test in May or June um one thing that we're going to talk about in a minute because you might go wait May and June there was testing in May and June kids could do AP test from home this year so that that's uh that was an interesting piece with that group of 2020 so kids could take AP tests from home well gosh what happened well the answer is really the exact same thing that had been happening um so the class of 2020 01 one 100th of a point mean less than the class of 2019 pass rate percent of students getting a three or above exact same as 2019 okay um to give you just a raw number
214which is not super relevant without a percent we gave 3,500 tests last year instead of 3,700 the year before so you know still relatively close um one thing uh college board did alter um their exams obviously to account for kids testing from home they they put in all sorts of security features um and and kids had a a narrow amount of time it was a condensed test that covered uh usually about through the first three fource of the AP curriculum but but by and large you can see that at least in terms of how that impacted our kids is they they seem to Fig figure out a way to do it that kept our kids pretty much right where they were the year before which um I saw that and I was I was kind
215of Blown Away at how close that was um but a lot of credit too to the the 3500 students who were like yeah you know it's a pandemic and I'm I'm good I'm going to take the test and I'm going to do about as well as I probably would have done otherwise um so interesting interesting pieces on AP there yeah are we applying that same kind of philosophy as it relates to our classes both in person and uh virtual as it relates to you know we've got to manage the content but at the same time we've got to manage the the environment so so that the child is still able to reasonably assimilate the material in the same amount of time um yes I mean I I I think so I mean I think you
216know in term I think that was kind of the driving force behind that prior it standards work and the aligning assessment stuff that I was talking about a little bit earlier um so so from those standpoints yes I will say I think AP teachers are kind of plowing ahead this year under the assumption of of no assumption meaning that depending upon the fate of the pandemic you know they need to plan to cover their whole standard AP curriculum but you know last year AP cut out basically the last quarter of curriculum for them and then kids tested from home so you know I we'll see um which which is not a great answer but at the same time I I think um you know I think we're we're adjust I think teachers are adjusting as
217they need to the other thing I would say Patrick is that this isn't the first time we've offered online AP classes we've had AP Government AP macro and M microeconomics I think um and our students have done well so it it's it's we've never had this many online AP classes um but we have done that before and been able to give students the information that they need and the skills that they need to be successful on those exams yeah so I would ask the same question of all of our nonap courses to the extent we can and we also applying that same philosophy absolutely it's the it's the same curriculum it's the same standards um and we would want them to have the same content um that we would have now again teachers have uh
218the autonomy to do you know what they see for that they need to do because they're professionals but they're covering the same curriculum or they should be yeah that's that's at least been the direction from from on High um all right so just some conclusions here so now that we've seen the newest data points in K12 so with regard to aadience about similar to where we were last year although the trend is relatively new only two years worth of data um grades 2 through eight reading scores pretty strong um and in fact in four of those sixth grade levels reading in 2019 surpassed uh excuse me in 2020 surpassed 2019 um in math we saw the dip students not gaining as many skills during the 1920 school year um and then the last two with
219regard to act and AP so act we do see that downward Trend um participation rate and potentially covid we know fact ing into that uh we also know that our trend is kind of paralleling the state Trend there um with ap we see um just stability that that's um kind of surprising um and that you you might even expect a little more fluctuation than we have but uh it's it's it's extremely stable there um so really the biggest things kind of moving forward and this hints at a lot of the questions you guys have asked uh you know the things that that obviously will be in position to continue to monitor as data comes in um I feel like I was you know an election expert from this last week but as data comes in
220um the work growth student growth is something we're going to monitor um gaps in relation to subgroups of students um and also in relation um to the particular curriculum data will start to reveal that um and then just figuring out how we're going to respond as a system so continuing to you know figure out how to best help kids um in terms of further support and intervention so that's it that's what I've got Adam I have a question about I know in past years we've given our nth and 10th graders the opportunity to take the ACT um and I know they did not this fall right is there going to be an opportunity for us to administer that and get that Baseline data for our right now we're in conversation with the buildings because it's
221it's pending learning mode honestly probably um right now we're we're thinking so Junior act day provides an opportunity where buildings are going to be um testing right so they're they're going to be having a big chunk of their kids testing kind of the next priority after that would probably be the Freshman preac 9 um which is you know kind of like PSAT is is PSAT 8's a baby version of PSAT preac 9 is a baby baby version of act designed for freshmen um that's a test normally would give in the fall the state funds it um so if there's an opportunity to give that on high school testing day that's kind of our next spot um and then sophomores um you know the opportunity to do a practice act on that day has has been
222discussed also yeah other questions comments thank you all right great job we appreciate it thank you next up introduce legislative positions for the 2021 legislative session so you have um in your board docs uh the first draft of our legislative positions so first of all we want to congratulate our Johnson County uh delegation and so these uh this first page is should look familiar it's very similar to uh what we've had in the past um so we have some statements about what we believe um some things that we know and there's a couple things highlighted and it's a draft because we're still uh uh tracking down those numbers uh so by the final time we have it we will have those accurate but I will uh direct your attention to the special education um number
223that is in there you'll notice that that's the second bullet uh we recoup 62.2% of the special education excess costs uh when the state law prescribes a 92% rate uh last year it was 65 point something so it's less this year than last year so that's very important so if we want to go down to the next page whoever is doing that for me there you go um the priority positions so we have a number of priority positions uh that we have here um again School Finance local control academic rigor uh the ability for the judicial review of State School Finance um student health uh and that's obviously important to us the mental health as well as we've you know had a lot of vaping um legislation that we've worked on uh tax credits and
224vouchers moved up uh to a priority standard and then our state tax policy for Education funding so the discussion for this group is uh do you want to prioritize those any further um or do we want to just leave those as as all priority standards and then the final page is just uh again our standing position I that I won't read through all of those and again no action on this tonight this is truly the just a a first time review of them and anything that we would need to discuss so I'll open it up for discussion yeah I know we got this a few days ago from you any initial comments obviously our standing positions are what we've had for a few years we've enhanced Student Health in regards to mental health and The
225Vaping and things like that over the years talk about school financing but Mike you have any initial thoughts um first of all having read it and it really isn't a whole lot different from from the past my question is more um does it make sense to reduce the number of priority positions and concentrate on a few and show them as being the most important and that way we won't have to number them um it's just a question not necessarily for the board but really for you who's going to use this with the legislators and doie and whoever else yeah yes I I think it would be helpful to have uh that's why I I thought of the numbering because I we we need to know you know what is our most crucial that we need
226to to focus on this this session so instead of having eight focus on I'm just makeing five or three just make it up okay so maybe talk with the team and then hone in on what we I think a lot of us will agree what those are but yep yeah I mean I I think the the number is is contingent upon what do we realistically need and can get done doesn't do any do do five if we can't get you know the first two um and and so I so I do think that analysis or review would be appropriate is you know these are our top two three four things and and we need to get those this year and we're going to go get them I me that's that's a little bit simplistic but
227but I don't think it does us any good even have five if we can't get them right right as far as the special ed funding M um so we recoup from the state does that include Federal money too or no just in generals I think it's just State money right okay State money which is fine but um if we recoup 62% they're supposed to pay 92% who where are we paying just for general knowledge for anyone still awake listening um where do we get that difference in money because if they're not paying us for it it has to come from somewhere I'll I'll turn over to Kyle well unfortunately it's not coming from anywhere I mean the districts are the ones that are for are putting the bill right so where is it coming from
228in our budget it's general fund General General operating fund so yeah it's it's it's that bucket that is most valuable to us okay that's what I wanted to make very clear that was a softball too right yes it was absolutely a softball so do you want uh me to come back with a priority of to is that what you want me to do or does this group want to do that me if I could I would simply suggest that you and your team take a look okay um at what seems to be most important for the district um and also what's you know most important most valuable and what can get done okay um I think Patrick made a good point if you can't get it done it's it's great it's a priority position but
229yeah and you keep repeating the same eight and things like that but yeah I think take a stab and I think in our various meetings we have committees and things like that we can get through it I I'm going to guess a lot we think early similar a lot of on some of these I mean it's a great list and there's a lot of wonderful things on there but I think I've seen every single one of those for every year that I've been here and not that that's a bad thing or not that those things aren't valuable and important but I think shifting our Focus to let's get the first three then next year let's do the next three then the next year let's do the next three some of those things may be ongoing
230but I think that's a different strategy got it we'll we'll be back with that then in December thank you madam vice president take over the rest of the meeting awesome thank you next up we have the approval of the I am I'm going to try to make this brief there's nothing better than being the last presenter after you've been here for four hours and 20 minutes so um especially I'm going to talk about a warehouse essentially but um so the district Logistics Center this is a project that's been in the work for a couple years and um many of you if not all of you have have have heard um quite a bit about this and we've put it on hold for a little while as as the bond issue was passed in in January
2312020 and we really wanted to roll out those projects first and um I put a considerable amount of the effort into that but now it's time to kind of uh bring this back to the surface and start talking about again so um this is essentially construction of a a logistics Center would be um it is a warehouse but it's much more than that um it's a it's a facility that would help uh with our IT services um our printing services our receiving and distribution efforts and and the bottom line is it it takes a lot of things that are happening under uh many roofs and puts them under one uh it creates a lot of efficiencies where we can centrally receive things uh we can move things about um in a much more better way
232because there's more space I'll show you a couple pictures of of the types of things that I'm talking about here but um our current practice is is basically we have stuff on just piled on top of each other and um it requires a lot of Shifting and maneuvering um and time wasted uh actually to to make things happen uh so you see that current practice there on the left the next practice is what we want to get to where you have spacious aisles you have a good racking system and you can actually you know move around um and move more quickly um and as you know you know one of the things that has really happened that's different in in blue value of the course of time especially in the last few years is we
233ramped up one to learner uh technology and a lot of those things are happening in in in not the most secure uh locations and and I think we could do much better than that so the site for this would be on this district office campus there was a a study that was done um it was a master plan for this campus in 2018 um and through that evaluation um this project site is which is essentially 5.7 Acres of green space that's just west of Blue Valley Academy and caps and um it's a nice level site it's open um it's adjacent to everything we have here and so we would be shifting some of those things over to that uh to that campus um and building on that site the other thing is really nice here
234is it's it's real quick access to Highway 69 which is the main thoroughfare North and South um as far as the schedule um you we talked about a little bit of the efforts that have been happening you know two years prior um the final programing design is kind of start back up here in January would go through August we'd go through the bidding next fall and the construction would start and hopefully would have completion two years from now um and that would be a a nice step forward so one of the things I want did want to point out to you is this is a different delivery method so a decision was made a little over a year ago um that we would use this delivery method as construction manager as advisor versus construction manager
235at risk and so the little diagram that you see there shows the difference and primarily the difference is we still have maau Gordon would serve as is our you know primary advisor um and consultant on this project but Blue Valley would hold the contractors with the contracts with the subcontractor so after the project is Bid um currently Macau Gordon or J Dunn were the ones that are holding the contracts and so in this situation it's it's creates some more work for our staff um but Blue Valley would be the ones holding those contracts so if there is a change order to something that um cost that was unexpected or something like that we'd be bringing that back to you so you haven't been seeing a lot of that stuff because it's happening behind the scenes
236and we make changes to the GMP um but this will be uh changes to individual contracts um and hopefully you avoid that as much as possible because you get solid bids and you have a good design and you execute the way you should uh to remind you this is a capital outlay A funded project it was set aside um over a year ago and um uh hopefully we can um achieve what we want to achieve within the dollars we have allocated any questions all right thank you Kyle any questions for Kyle I got some Kyle so so on the um so on the construction manager versus the construction manager risk we believe that's a more effective route in this particular setting because um that's not really a softball um so I got another one no
237okay good um just warm it up so um prior to me coming so back I think it was probably January of of of 19 um the there was a decision making going on about what what was the the shift that the district was going to make with how they were going to do construction because almost everything was done through a general contractor we hard bid things and we managed things internally and um I think we found that that wasn't necessarily the most efficient use of time and resources and so we wanted to explore what was what was out there what was different and there was two cm type of ways to do things one was at risk and one was at as adviser and I think the decision at that time administrat from the board
238perspective was let's try both and let's see what works well for us and then um make a decision on the next Bond under the next whatever uh going forward as to what we would do so we picked this project specifically to do this method and all the others are at risk and I that works so in terms of building the Distribution Center what's and I know we don't have a a bid but we certainly have a budget and I'm not asking you for the budget what's the what's the ROI in terms of years approximately um that's that's difficult I you know we're we are when the when the project was originally the programming effort happened um and you looked at the just the needs assessment of the spaces and all those different things um that
239budget came in around 18 million um and that was two years ago and so um I think an effort since then has been made to to refine that condense that see what we really need and I think you know our Target now is is maybe in the $15 million range of of of trying to come in as as the budget as to what I would bring to you for approval and so um obviously that's less money and time has gone on and that's that's the Hope though that's where that's where our Target is so but in terms of efficiencies by doing this do we think there's going to be some sort of return over even a longer period of time oh I think substantially yeah I I mean um you think about manpow hour is
240lost with shuffling things around um that that's just not a good use of your human resources and you know especially as as things seem to get Tighter and Tighter for us fiscally um we just have to be more mindful of that and this is a big opportunity I think to to take care of that issue we aren't able Patrick as a district to um buy things uh at costs and stock them somewhere and deliver something as simple as nursing supplies we've talked about before is like we should we should centrally have nursing supplies buy them in bulk we don't have anywhere to store those right now and so that's the type of thing that a a central place like this will allow us to do um Our IT staff I these guys I know uh
241are shuffled from one place to another anywhere that there's just a little bit of of space when I was a building principal we would have stuff dropped at our Dock and we would find space for it within the building because there was nowhere for it to be centrally you know dropped here so all of those things uh are reasons that that we we've just outgrown we just again we were you know kind of a little District that just got too big and we we just don't have space to to put that stuff if I could there were and I'm I think Michelle and I were probably the only ones here when we had this original discussion committe um one of the other things that we talked about was risk and if you would walk through
242the um lobby of the Caps building uh two years ago there were literally thousands of boxes half open and I mean know the I don't know how you quantify risk right a kid a student falling or or theft um or or just fundamental loss so um we did ask that question um to to Kyle's predecessor I just honestly don't remember the answer um but risk was a huge issue especially with potential loss I'm not trying to bail you out but no and you weren't here a big discussion was the the um doubling of work I mean we were doing things you in different buildings at the same time and and that was just a complete waste of Manpower and um and then finding somewhere to put so one C since I've been on the board
243this has been a a talked about need um so and and I think that the ROI is really very um clear savings as the years go by yeah don't get me wrong I was just trying to understand you know make sure that everybody understands that we're spending $15 million roughly thereabouts and and where we expect that to benefit us whether it's risk or Manpower or buying in bulk um so that we have at least an understanding uh for our community that the the money is going towards um ultimate savings yeah I think the difference is kind of like what we were just talking about a second ago when with the last report is you're using Capital outlay dollars um to fund a project where you're going to save on the operational fund the general fund
244which is where you need uh the money to pay for our staff our teachers um to make um the most effective learning environment we can uh make possible for our students so it's um to me it's a no-brainer and just to clarify Capital outlay funds cannot be used for teachers and electric bills and other expenses that we normally pay in our general fund right Capital Outlet funds are are usually used for your fixed assets and um things of that nature we do use Capital funds because there has been a change in the law that you can use those for custodial maintenance folks um but that's where it stops all right any additional questions okay do I have a motion I move that the Board of Education approve Macau Gordon as the construction manager as advisor
245for the logistics Center all right second second by Michelle thank you in favor please raise your right hand all right motion passes 5 to one thank you very much and then I think we'll move into the closing adjournment so do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting okay thank you Mike and second by Patrick all those in favor raise your right hand motion passes five two one five one okay we're adjourned oh and Jody's birthday's coming up oh she almost missed the uh the announcement but the 21st and then Thanksgiving and so a big week my disc